 I really have been talked to the first lady in so long because she's been on tour all over the world. I need these. I'm sorry. We've got Patrick. No, she's excited about it. The closet judicial have to hand it back. Oh. Okay. The mouse. That didn't seem... Yeah. Wait, is this the closet judicial? I thought it was light rail. No, that looks like light rail. That looks like the zoning thing. I thought it was the elementary school. It's about the wrongs. It's about the wrongs. Yeah. Down here. We've been sure for being. Yeah. Super conscious about it because. We hate to get messed up around that. Yes. I'm sorry. Thank you. Okay. Pray on it. Father God. Yeah. I saw elementary school. Yeah. I do realize you've made it so that I will be extremely talkative. Good evening. I want to call this meeting of the Durham City Council to order for December. December the 3rd, 2018. And I certainly want to welcome all of you all here tonight. We're very... I think the microphone is working. I'll try to talk a little bit closer to it. Good evening. Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting of the Durham City Council to order. 7 o'clock on December the 3rd, 2018. I certainly want to welcome everyone here tonight. Glad to have you with us. And I'll first ask if you'll join me for a moment of silent meditation. Thank you. And I'll ask Council Member Reese if he would lead us into the pledge. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone. You're looking very Christmassy. So thanks for that coordination. Certainly appreciate it. At this time, if it's your practice to do so and if you're able, please rise and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. This is to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice. Thank you very much. And now, Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Here. Council Member Alston. Here. Council Member Caballero. Here. Council Member Freeman. Present. Council Member Middleton. Here. And Council Member Reese. Here. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to read this proclamation and I'm going to ask Ms. Walsh if she has a few words for us. Whereas the City of Durham is home to diverse population and is committed to the human and civil rights of all of its residents, is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. And whereas on October 20th, 2003, the City of Durham adopted both the Bill of Rights Defense Resolution and the resolution supporting the rights of persons regardless of their rights. And I'm going to ask Ms. Walsh if she has a few words for us. Whereas the City of Durham is home to diverse population and is committed to the human rights of persons regardless of immigration status. And whereas over the past two years, there's been a disturbing increase in the arrest, detention and deportation of immigrants throughout the region. And whereas some well, Oliver Bruno, having worked here legally for many years, re-entered this country from Mexico to support his spouse during major surgery and is needed for her continuing support. And whereas Mr. Oliver Bruno was forced by threat of deportation to take refuge in a Durham church for 11 months, was induced to leave that refuge by the false promise of progress on his petition to remain and was arrested without warning and has been sent to the notorious detention center in Georgia. And we also know there's more to that story as well now. And whereas Durham's congressional representatives, Congressman Price and Congressman Butterfield have written in support of Mr. Oliver Bruno and other law abiding immigrants who have been persecuted unjustly by immigration and customs enforcement. And whereas such denial of humans, civil and constitutional rights runs counter in the city. Now, therefore, I, Stephen M. Schul, Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina do hereby proclaim December 10th and December 15th as Human Rights Day and Bill of Rights Day in Durham and urge all residents to join me and all members of the Durham City Council in reaffirming our support for the bill of rights and the civil rights and liberties and guarantees to all. We urge all residents of Durham to support the city's efforts to welcome immigrants, and particularly the many Central Americans who have endured lengthy and difficult journeys in different countries. Witness my hand at the Corporate Seal of the City of Durham, North Carolina, this the third day of December, 2018. I'd like to ask whoever came for this proclamation to join me for a moment up here, if you would. I saw another friend on his way in, but here he comes. Oh, here he comes. Would you like to come up here, Andy? Okay, we are a few but dedicated. Thank you, Mayor Schul and City Councilors for this proclamation. It's all the more important to recognize human rights and bill of rights days in this time of assault on human and civil rights. We're all aware of the current federal administration's blatant disdain for human rights. Mr. Oliver Bruno's entrapment imprisonment and now deportation are just one glaring example. We all need to do whatever we can to protect our most vulnerable neighbors in these times. Another North Carolina example is the complete lack of an official investigation of our accountability for our state's very extensive role in the post-911 torture program. The North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture cited in Durham's 2016 and 2017 proclamations completed its report this year and I've been invited to distribute it to the Council tonight. Its recommendations include a list of actions local officials can take to insist that Governor Cooper and Attorney General Stein investigate Johnston County's CIA front company, Arrow contractors, and most importantly make certain that our state is not used again as a launching pad for torture taxis, a threat that seems all too likely given the positions taken by the current administration. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now we will move to the announcements by members of the Council. My colleagues, any announcements? Council members? I would just like to take a moment to congratulate our newest Sheriff Chief Burke, I'm sorry Sheriff Burkehead in his upcoming I just wanted to just take a moment to acknowledge that. It was sworn in today. It was a beautiful ceremony and Council Member Rees was the moderator and did a great job. Thank you for noticing that Council Member Freeman, it was a big day. Any other announcements? Okay, we'll now move to priority items by the City Manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of Council, good evening everyone. One priority item this evening from the City Manager's Office which is agenda item number 17 the agreement between Durham County Emergency Medical Services and the City of Durham Fire Department. This item needs to be referred back to the administration this evening. Thank you. Thank you. You have heard the manager's priority item and I will accept a motion on that item. It's been moved and seconded that we accept the manager's priority item to send number 17 back to the administration. Madam Clerk, would you please open the vote? Please close the vote. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. And now we'll move to Mr. City Attorney. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of Council. I do have a couple of priority items for you. Or agenda item number 7 that is a cooperation agreement with Go Triangle for Durham Orange Light Rail Transit Review. There has been a change to article 3 paragraph F of the cooperative agreement and I've set this out in a memo for you. But the original paragraph created a misinterpretation that the final design of the light rail corridor had already been completed. That's not the case. And the revision that I've included in the memo I would recommend you adopt that as you're taking this item up and I've got proposed language at the bottom that would take that change into account to clarify where things stand. And that's on agenda item number 7. And agenda item number 12 and that is the contract for Off Street parking access and revenue control system for the city's parking facilities. There were some questions about privacy of the collection of information. And on section 12E of the proposed contract there is going to be language that's added to that that includes under no independent rights to customer information contractors prohibited from using any customer information including which has been added vehicle license numbers, vehicle identification or registration information that'll be added to that contract. I don't think that change has been incorporated into the agenda but I would propose that when you take up that item that those edits be included into that. Thank you very much. Do you suggest that we move that item also off of consent and address it at the end of the meeting? That would be fine just to clarify that. I'll accept a motion now on the city attorney's items. It's been moved and seconded that we move both item 7 and 12 off of consent agenda and we'll be taking them up at the end of the meeting as per the city attorney's priority items. Madam clerk would you please open the vote? Please close the vote. The motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. Madam clerk any priority items? Good evening mayor and council. I have no items. Thank you very much. I am now going to read the consent agenda but before I read the consent agenda just make sure that everybody has a chance to do this now. We have a big public hearing item coming up shortly after I read and we approve the consent agenda so I just want to make sure that everyone who is planning to speak at this public hearing and would like to speak has signed one of the yellow cards available over here at the clerk's desk so if you have not signed up to speak please go and sign one of those cards. You can do it while I'm reading about the consent agenda. We're reading consent agenda if you'd like. The consent agenda can be adopted by a single vote of the council. These are items that the council has previously considered in a work session and will be adopted by a single vote unless a member of the public or a member of the council would like to see these items from the agenda in which case we will be taking this up at the end of the meeting which tonight I predict will be very late. Consent agenda Item 1 approval of city council minutes Item 2 boards committees and commissions attendance reports for the period of July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018 Item 3 cash receipts performance audit October 2018 Item 4 FY 2019-20 Development Schedule Item 5 resolution to reserve public land for housing Item 6 interim reimbursement agreement with Go Triangle for Durham Arch light rail trail DOLRT review Item 7 This is the item one of the items that's been moved all consent we will take up at the end of the meeting cooperation agreement with Go Triangle for Durham Arch light rail transit review Item 8 contract between the city of Durham and the housing authority of the city of Durham for the provision of tenant based rental assistance services under the housing opportunities for persons with AIDS HOPWA program Item 9 contract between the city of Durham and Durham County for the provision of housing assistance to related support services under the housing opportunities for persons with AIDS HOPWA program Item 10 NC 751 University Drive Bicycle and Pedestrian Project Supplemental Municipal Agreement EB 5514 Item 11 extension municipal maintenance item 12 this has also been moved to the end of the meeting has been pulled off of the consent agenda for a small language change this is contract for all street parking access and review control system parks for the city's parking facilities item 13 parking facility security and surveillance camera equipment contract item 14 contract with J.F. Wielerson contracting company Wilkerson sorry contracting company for the mechanical of our water line replacement item 15 item 16 October 2018 bid report item 17 has been sent back to the administration for further consideration item 18 cooperative group purchase contract for two trucks of water sewer inspection systems item 19 construction contract cadet construction company for accessibility improvements at valley springs park item 20 seventh amendment to assignment agreement for the Durham athletic park operating agreement item 21 proposed condemnation of property located at 4214 favel road Durham North Carolina 27713 parcel number 146815 for the favel road improvement project item 22 proposed condemnation of property located 1011 riddle road Durham NC 27713 parcel number 133904 for the favel road improvement project item 23 proposed condemnation of property located at 4111 favel road Durham NC parcel number 133841 for the favel road improvement project item 24 housing appeals board annual report fiscal year 2018 item 25 cities for financial empowerment fund incorporated city start initiative item 26 Buckingham road culvert replacement amendment number 1 item 27 telecommunications license with selco partners dba Verizon wireless item 28 contract st264 for favel road improvements with carolina sunrock item 29 contract st 2019-02 for stormwater infrastructure repairs item 30 contract amendment number 7 of st264c with kimley horn for professional services related favel road improvements item 31 contract sw 39 for university drive bike and sidewalk project tip number eb 5514 item 32 contract sw 39c for the university drive bike lane sidewalk construction administration inspections tip number eb 5514 item 33 submission of the comprehensive annual financial report for the fiscal year into june 30th 2018 items 37 to 42 can be found on the general business agenda under public hearings I will now entertain a motion on the consent agenda absent items 7 12 and 17 so moved second we approve the consent agenda madam clerk will you please open the vote close the vote motion passes 7 0 thank you very much we are now at item 37 consolidated annexation item for rail operations maintenance facility this is a public hearing item and I will ask our member of our staff to please report to us on this item miss sunyak please good evening the following planning and zoning cases have been properly notified in accordance with the state and local law and all on file with the planning office meeting I am Jamie sunyak with the planning department request for utility extension agreement voluntary annexation future land use map amendment and zoning map change have been received from go triangle for contiguous 23.422 acre track located generally at 4901 Farrington road the annexation petition seeks to bring 12 parcels and the additional right of way along I-40 which is a total of 53.214 acres into the existing city limits the subject site is presently zoned residential suburban 20 RS 20 the applicant is requesting a zoning designation of industrial light with a development plan the parcels are currently located or I'm sorry the parcels are currently designated as office and commercial on the future land use map is submitted an associated request to industrial if approved to the annexation petition future land use map amendment and zoning change would become effective on December 31 2018 key commitments associated with this plan are limiting the use to the rail operations maintenance facility prohibiting vehicle body repairs and paint shops adding vegetative screen along the properties western boundary placing a building a minimum of 75 feet from Farrington road and the built parking at least 30 feet from Farrington road aiming exterior lighting away from property boundaries the public works and water management departments have determined that the existing water and sewer mains have the capacity for the proposed development the budget and management services department that the proposed annexation will have a negative fiscal impact since the property will not be subject to property taxation additional information can be found in the staff report the planning commission at their October 9th 2018 meaning did not recommend approval the proposed industrial light zoning district by a vote of four to four subsequent to the planning commission meaning the applicant has offered the following additional proffers which the staff has reviewed and found to be legally enforceable a row of evergreen plantings no less than eight feet tall at the time of installation spaced on an average of no more than 14 linear feet apart measured center to center be planted behind the vegetative screening on the sites western property line along Farrington road the applicant will also provide an earth and berm no less than four feet to the linear extent as indicated on the development plan in addition there will be no clearing grading site preparation infrastructure installation or construction as shown on site plans for the facility approved by the city of Durham until go triangle has secured a full funding grant agreement for the Durham orange light rail transit project inspections will take place to determine the need for maintenance, rodent and pest control all inspections will continue monthly until construction commencement or go triangle disposal of the property in the event that the project is not secure funding a secure an FFGA which stands for the full funding grant agreement building repairs or demolition of vacant buildings, yard care fire hazard prevention security buildings rodent and pest controls and other safety and sanitary measures have been and will be followed to comply with public health safety or other community standards go triangle may hire a contractor to perform the needed maintenance services construction activities related to the development of the ROMP will be subject to applicable city state and federal codes including but not limited to the Durham city code section 26 dash 23 be to limit noise traffic lighting and impacts of construction activity staff determines that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan and the applicable policies and ordinances for motions are required for this application the first is required by law to approve the utility extension agreement and voluntary annexation petition the second is to adopt a resolution amending the future land use map the third is to adopt a consistency statement the fourth is for the zoning ordinance I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you very much miss Sunyak very much appreciate your report council members you have heard the report from staff and I'm going to declare this public hearing to be open and first I'm going to ask if there are any questions for staff by members of the council all right thank you hearing none I will now take public comment and I want to preface this by making a few comments myself Tonya do you have other cards that you want to give to me thank you thank you very much okay just want to say a few words about tonight's public hearings just so everybody can kind of be on the same page and we can talk about how public hearings go in our chambers because I know for a lot of you all you've never been to one before and some of us have been to too many but we're very glad to have you here for this one let me just tell you what my goals are as mayor my goals are to be fair to both sides and to make sure everybody gets heard those are my two goals and those are my only two goals we will abide by the council's customary rules and procedures and so I want everybody to understand about how we're going to proceed again if you have not signed up to speak and you would like to do so please go to the clerks table and sign one of the yellow cards so this is a rezoning and with the rezoning we're required to offer an equal amount of time for each side the proponents and the opponents and so you've been asked those who's been asked to speak have been asked to sign up to whether or not they're a proponent or not I everyone we got a lot of people who signed up roughly I haven't got the exact count at this point but something like I think about 19 proponents and about 50 opponents so almost 70 people have signed up to speak tonight so given that we have so many people signed up to speak I'm going to offer a two minute time limit to every speaker there's a clock at the clerks table you can see it right there and it'll be running when you're speaking and you'll be able to view it from over here at the podium so press that clock because when your time is up it is up you do not have extra time no one has any extra time because we want to be respectful of everyone's time and make sure that everybody gets equal time I want to say that this two minute limit and I've already informed GoTriangle of this applies to the GoTriangle speakers as well even though GoTriangle is the applicant tonight usually in our rezoning hearings we've got more time in which to make its case at the beginning of the hearing but given the number of speakers I think this is the best way to proceed and I have so informed GoTriangle and I want to make it clear that GoTriangle will undoubtedly get questions from the council which will allow it to provide more detailed information than the two minutes per speaker will allow as always after we've heard from everyone who wants to speak the council will have questions and comments for the speakers as necessary and we will be voting tonight on the rezoning I ask speakers to be respectful of our time if you have heard the point you want to make several times before and by the way this is just our first public hearing tonight not our last if you hear points you've made several times before you may certainly decide not to speak to give up your speaking slot or to speak only briefly when your time comes this happens often in public hearings like this and it may well happen tonight more important though I want to make the most important point I want to make I ask speakers to be respectful of each other and everyone else in the room in the words that you use while folks and we all have different opinions on this issue and everyone's opinion is welcome this is not the time for personal attacks rude behavior disrespectful behavior towards anyone let's stick to the issues as I like to say hard on the issues soft on the people let's do that tonight we're all in this for the good of our community whatever our positions are on this rezoning everyone here is here because they believe their point of view is what's best for our community and I will endeavor myself to set that time I also want to let you know in terms of the procedure we'll be using tonight that a group from Colt Arbor has requested that their speakers and I believe there are now 27 of them who would like to speak in order I'm happy to grant that request and I will do my best to make that happen if there are any other groups that would like to have their speakers in order you can let me know and I will try to accommodate that request as well but the Colt Arbor folks ask and send me a list of people in order and I think it should be easy to make that happen and I'm happy to grant that request I want to explain the concept of equal time for each side in this rezoning so everybody will understand that each side is required by our rules and how that will work is this one of the sides each side in a rezoning hearing it's required by our rules that each side gets the same amount of time so in this case we have 50 speakers for one side that's 100 minutes we have roughly 20 speakers for another side that's 40 minutes that leaves 60 minutes for the proponents they can also their speakers can come and speak again if they would so like as always in these hearings I will allow the side with the fewest minutes to make up those minutes with other speakers or with comments from previous speakers if anyone desires to speak again of course it is not necessary that that time be filled I will give the applicant go triangle first crack at any extra time should it exist on the side of their proponents and it sounds like given the number of speakers that it will so those are I think I have laid out what I believe to be the rules of our public hearing in a way that I hope everyone can understand and I want to stress rule number one we are here for a civil discussion of an important public policy question and my colleagues and I on the city council will endeavor to make the wisest decision that we can about this question to encourage everyone to be respectful of all the other speakers in the room and everyone else in the room who is not speaking tonight it is really critically important that we are able to maintain that thank you alright now I am going to begin as again let me just remind you as I said earlier our rules call for the proponents to go first as there are about 20 speakers and they each get two minutes the opponents can expect about 40 minutes before you all will begin if you would like to go out in the hall and enjoy yourself feel free but although I am sure that the proponents presentations will be scintillating as will the opponents okay I am going to ask first if there are go triangle speakers I see a couple of them signed up Mr. Tallmadge and Dave Charters are you present are there any other go triangle speakers here John are there any other go triangle speakers here okay thank you I am going to after Mr. Tallmadge and Mr. Charters I am going to call the following people to the podium and what I would like you to do is I would like you to line up over here I am going to call around 10 of you to line up over here so we will be able to move quickly through the speakers so first will be John Tallmadge second will be Dave Charters third will be Mark Iwinski Kedi Thelomac Thelomac how do you say Kedi's name Mark Anthony Telomac Kedi I hope I didn't get that wrong I am sorry Dick Hales Leandre Blakeney Jim Svara and I have either Anthony Scott or Meredith Day is either Anthony Scott or Meredith Day here Anthony Scott Diane Katati if you all would make your way over to this side of the room and this will be the first group of speakers of proponents after that group of proponents we will have the next group of proponents alright Mr. Tallmadge welcome please state your name and address you have two minutes I am John Tallmadge interim project director at GoTriangle for the light rail project my address is 910 Vergy Street here in Durham North Carolina good evening mayor and members of the council there are many concerns citizens here tonight both in support of and in opposition to the selected site for the light rail operations facility I want to make sure their voices are heard I want to emphasize that we have listened to the concerns of neighbors of the site and in response we have designed the site layout and made text commitments to address those concerns back in 2015 we first reached out to neighbors of the site before the site selection was made and during fall of that year at open houses on the draft environmental impact statement we listened to comments on the entire project including the five sites that were considered for the ROM flocation after this site was selected we began addressing the concerns that we had heard through those other meetings by redesigning the site layout to minimize impacts with this rezoning process we listened to neighbors input on November 15th of 2017 and also on January 31st of 2018 and then in the rezoning request we made a text commitment to limit the site's use to a rail maintenance and operations facility and other text or design commitments that address the noise visual impacts onsite fluids, transportation impacts and security concerns following the planning commission on October 9th we realized that we needed a new approach to listening to the neighbors and since then we've had five small group meetings listening sessions with neighbors and with creek side administrators and parents we've added four new text commitments since the planning commission meeting the berm, the row of evergreen trees restricting the impacts during construction and waiting until full project funding before clearing the trees or starting construction of all the concerns that have been voiced by the community noise has been mentioned the most and we want to make sure that members of the community and the council have the opportunity to base their judgments on facts, not fear and I've invited Dave Charters GoTriangle's manager of design and engineering to discuss the facts about noise thank you for your consideration Thank you Mr. Tomage, Mr. Charters could you please give us your name and address and you also have two minutes Good evening mayor, council members my name is Dave Charters, manager of design and engineering for the light rail project for GoTriangle my address is 303 Highfield Avenue in Cary, North Carolina after the various listening sessions that John mentioned that we've held with the community, noise has seemed to be one of the major concerns we've tried to address this concern with facts about the reality of noise related to the light rail operations facilities before coming to GoTriangle I worked on light rail projects in Pittsburgh, Baltimore Norfolk and Cleveland all of which have operations facilities so I have some prior knowledge and experience with these type of projects please note that the magnitude of noise emanating from our operations facility will be significantly less than the magnitude of noise emanating from a Go Durham bus for example projected noise from the facility won't be anything like a jet fighter jet taking off from an aircraft carrier or even from a lawn mower noise from the operations facility will be lessened before it reaches the community by the romp buildings themselves the earth berm along the romp edge vegetative buffering even the earth berm that's on the Culp Arbor side of Farrington Road lubrication on the curved rails and even noise reducing wheel components on the light rail vehicle when I heard the community's concerns I wanted to make sure we could communicate the reality of noise emanating from the romp so I reached out to a former colleague in Norfolk Virginia to see if he could take actual measurements of their light rail system with similar curves emanating the wheel squeal that is of concern to the community he did that and issued a brief memo that I can share with the council if you'd like to have a copy but it confirmed the information that we are sharing before going any further I want to address concerns that have been heard from members of the Creekside Elementary School Community there will be no impacts to that school area thank you Mr. Charters thank you our third speaker Mark Iwinsky 2902 Quince Moore Road thank you Mr. Iwinsky you have two minutes thank you Mr. Mayor City Council this won't take from your time Mr. Charters I think we would like that report so if you could make copies available and I think that would be great if we could have that this evening thank you I'm sorry Mr. Iwinsky I apologize no problem thank you Mr. Mayor City Council for the opportunity to speak with you tonight I would first like to say I definitively support the light rail and have acted to do so both professionally and personally I speak in an unaffiliated capacity tonight and give my measured support for the rezoning for the ROMF nonetheless I have some concerns regarding the pervasive lack of transparency in black box engineering that occurs within GoTriangle it's the kind of thing that's left us with a city center gap so to speak that was finally mitigated by DAD but regarding the ROMF and its planned location I'm well aware that timing is essential at this point due to federal guidelines I find it disheartening though that because of GoTriangle's design process this is the location that we have to settle for its proximity to suburban developments including a school is going to radically alter the local environment and yet according to John Talmadge in public meetings there is no public money to mitigate its relationship to the surroundings this site if it must be here and we all know that it's really too late to change that design must address those environmental and visual impacts right now we've seen no visuals regarding a berm or wall or any sort of tree buffer we've had no real information about what the actual onsite planning is going to look like and I think that's unfair to the citizens we can speak these words but we actually need visuals so they know what they're going to have to face and if this ROMP must be here I think that money needs to be found in this process needs to move ahead in such a way that it is not going to impact detrimentally the environmental or environmental aspect of this community these people who are going to have to actually live with it there I want to thank you very much for your time I hope that this can be a successful process going forward thank you Mr. Owenski Kedi nice to see you I'm sorry I didn't get your name quite right you did you fine please give us your name and address you have two minutes Kedi Telemac 2015 Rathi Drive Derm North Carolina good evening Mr. Mayor and City Council members all Dermcan member institutions have endorsed transit to support the project moving forward for the following reasons one, Ken has generated several opportunities for affordable housing in close proximity to future transit the light rail is the best way to connect those affordable housing hubs with jobs, education and health centers secondly, the triangle adds more than 80 residents a day making it one of the fastest growing regions in the country it also adds prosperity and new employment opportunities but it also adds congestion on our roadways a new light rail line between downtown Derm and Chapel Hill will offer a congestion free way to travel the light rail line will provide over 26,000 trips per day to residents and commuters in Derm and Chapel Hill the rail project will connect three major universities three major medical facilities in the state, Duke University UNC Chapel Hill and the UNC Health System also the construction of the light rail will require the creation of thousands of new jobs Dermcan has secured an agreement from GoTriangle that all transit related jobs will pay a living wage of $14 to $15 including contractors this is a great opportunity to help the hard to employ in Derm secure access to opportunity and finally Dermcan has held several small group conversations with 3,500 people in Derm about their frustrations dreams and aspirations for our great city transit is always at the top of those conversations thank you thank you Miss Telemag we'll now hear from we'll now hear from Dick Hales Mr. Hales you have two minutes please give us your name and address my name is Dick Hales I live at 100 Brercliffe Road in Derm good evening Mr. Mayor members of council I'm speaking this evening on behalf of Dermcan congregations, associations and neighborhood Can is a broad based non-profit organization that works to coalesce, train and organize communities in Derm across religious, racial, ethnic, class geographic lines for the public good our primary goal is to develop local leadership and organize citizens to change the conditions that prevent low and moderate income families from improving their circumstances more than 27 churches, neighborhood and community organizations from throughout Derm are members of Can at a recent meeting Can member organizations pledge attendance of a number of persons at tonight's meeting to show their support for this important rezoning request so at this time I would ask all persons present tonight supporting this rezoning to please stand thank you please be seated at its metro council meeting last week November 29th at St. Philip's Episcopal Church Can members unanimously approve supporting the romp free zoning including for the following reasons planned light rail transit project as substantial benefits for the Derm citizens in particular by reducing overall housing and transportation costs particularly for lower income citizens in addition by placing affordable housing and locations near the transit stations good access will be assured to all persons for jobs housing retail and other destinations a detailed study was conducted of several prospective romp sites along the rail corridor this site was determined to have the least negative impacts on the community there's a substantial existing noise in the area for more than 100,000 car and truck trips per day on nearby interstate 40 added noise from this project would be limited to both the large landscape buffer setbacks and that the maintenance building will be active as of being concerned thank you Mr. Hills thank you very much we will next hear from Leondre Blakeney is Mr. Blakeney here we thought we were in order back there okay well you can I've offered the other side to be in order so feel free who would like to go next that's fine okay good what about that Mayor Shul Pro Tim Johnson Madam Clerk good evening my name is Leondre Blakeney and I live on 400 my home street Durham North Carolina and I'm here to read a statement on behalf of People's Alliance the Durham People's Alliance supports the rezoning for the rail operations maintenance facility which directly affects the viability of the light rail project we ask that the city council approve this rezoning at the December 3rd meeting PA supports light rail transit and it's promised as a key building block of progressive economic growth in our region we are weighed in on the need for affordable housing near transit stops a key feature of the Durham Orange light rail project we have also supported many of the interim decisions needed by the city and the county officials to keep this project moving forward our support for rezoning supports this long-standing position we appreciate the efforts of GoTriangle with concerns regarding traffic the commitment to enhance the nearby roadways by widening Farrington Road to provide a five-foot bike lane as well as other commitments made in the development plan we also appreciate the analysis and information shared addressing other concerns such as noise and light impervious surface and storm water runoff and contaminants and chemicals our support is also due to the two-year analysis concerning confirming the location at the least environmentally damaging location of the five location alternatives we know that this site offers the best location to provide the buffers and mitigation needed to minimize potential impacts the Durham People's Alliance is a grassroots organization of over 1,400 members representing the Durham community we have been organizing for a more just and equitable Durham for over 40 years to make this vision a reality we advocate for among other issues affordable housing environmental environment and quality affordable transportation the light rail specifically linking two-thirds of all existing permanent affordable housing our three major universities three out of ten of the top ten employers in our state including Duke University which I'm a student of and the medical center and our three of our major hospitals our connecting people thank you Mr. Blakeney thank you I'm sorry to have to cut people off so everybody can expect the same evil treatment Jim Savara please give us your name and address you have two minutes yes thank you Jim Savara 1114 Woodburn Road and I'm here speaking on behalf of the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit which is an advocate for expanded housing particularly in close proximity to light rail and the two relate to each other and support each other in a critical way the resolution was passed on November 15 which has been shared with the council I'll let me identify a couple key points although many of these have been made and then some other comments about the site this is as we've heard transit helps in so many ways it is a necessary facility that has been the designated site since 2016 it is the changes have been made since the planning commission hearing to reduce impact and we've heard what the council has described it's important that this this approval could only be extended to the light rail facility it could not be used for any other industrial purpose without a new rezoning process the ROMF is not a noisy disruptive factory the opponents of ROMF have created a monster in their criticism but it is a myth it will be an extended office building with space for the staff to operate the system as well as the maintenance and repair center we've heard there are limits on what kinds of repairs can be done the distances that are available will help prevent intrusion there are only three there are only nine houses in Culp Harbor that are within 200 feet of the structure the rest are much farther back there are 100 structures there there will be no impact on the school it is a third of a mile as the crow flies from the site of the structure and the benefits greatly out way the slight disadvantages we urge the council to make this important approval that will benefit Durham and not harm nearby residents thank you Anthony Scott please state your name and address you have two minutes Anthony Scott, 330 East Main Street I'm here speaking on behalf of the Durham Housing Authority I support the Durham Orange Light Rail we see the light rail as an integral part to the future of our redevelopment goals with respect to affordable housing development we see a couple of things in particular the creation of a critical transportation artery through available job centers an integral component to our affordable housing redevelopment efforts has been shared with you the proximity of the light rail station to DHA housing sites will promote the successful transformation of our existing public housing communities over half of our affordable housing sites are within a 10 minute walk to the station 7 out of 10 of our excuse me 7 out of 10 of our sites are within one mile 80% of our public housing communities are within 2 miles of a stop to be more specific about the downtown community 447 units are located on 30 acres in the downtown area there's another 20 acres of vacant land on the Fayette Place site our redevelopment plans will look to increase our available mixed income units to approximately 2,000 units or possibly more than 10 years each of those units will be a mere 10 minute walk from a light rail station this is 10 minutes from connection to the arteries of jobs healthcare and education centers that the light rail serves directly the light rail project provides an excellent opportunity to create a meaningful transit oriented design that will be anchored by permanent affordable housing through mixed income and mixed use communities that will enhance the quality of life of the city and the city of Fayette Place thank you before I call the next speaker I'm going to ask if the other proponents could line up over here to my right as well Dan Joule Vijay Sivaraman Jonathan Osay Chris Selby Sue Hunter Kevin Primus Eric Plow and Wib Gully I'm going to ask you if you would mind are you a proponent or an opponent thank you very much I'll get you in the next group let me just say that again then after Diane Cattati we'll have Dan Joule Vijay Sivaraman Jonathan Osay Chris Selby and Wib Gully Miss Cattati welcome before you get started it's customary to welcome our former members back into this council chambers I don't believe you've been back and since you left the council great to see you back thank you and hope that hope you have good memories of us very fond memories thank you it's always a pleasure to be here I'm Diane Cattati and I'm at 4147 Deepwood Circle good evening council staff, proponents, opponents I live in southwest Durham and I know the area that proposed rezoning well I strongly support the light rail project I encourage you to support this land use change and rezoning while I served on the Durham City Council we reviewed and visited the possible rail operations and maintenance facility locations throughout Durham I believe this proposed location is the most appropriate location for the ROMP the environmental impact statement notes this as well I visited the Charlotte ROMP as have many of you it's surrounded by residential apartment buildings and is surprisingly quiet outside this is a large site at roughly 23 acres and allows for significant buffering and mitigation efforts to address neighborhood concerns the rezoning development plan includes significant committed elements included shielded lighting additional buffer, berm and vegetative screening and restrictions on paint and body work the ROMP also will generate less traffic than other land uses that could be developed on the site under the existing commercial office designation on the future land use map I urge you to vote to support the land use change and rezoning this evening for your service thank you Ms. Cattadi and now we'll hear from Dan Jewel Mr. Jewel you have two minutes please give us your name and address yes sir good evening Mr. Mayor members of the council I am Dan Jewel I reside at 1025 Glory Avenue which is just 300 yards from the proposed Buchanan light rail station and it can't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned I'm a licensed landscape architect usually I'm in front of you representing and strongly urging your support of this proposal I am publicly on record being concerned with some specific design issues of the light rail system up and down the line but I'm sure that as all parties come together we can have a good conversation and work those details out that's what we in Durham do best and we need this for the future growth for decades to come I have a lot of familiarity with this neighborhood the neighbors asked a group of mine the legacy neighbors 20 years ago to start looking at how to plan for this part of town knowing that the light rail system had been designated this corridor had been designated as much as 20 years ago subsequently I worked on the special use permit and site plan for Creekside elementary school I worked on the rezoning of Culp Arbor and ironically at the time we made the case that the project was designed at a higher density because of the proximity of the light rail station the corridor was designated a long time ago these projects happened after it was designated perhaps most significantly about 15 years ago I was asked to rezone a piece of property about a half mile south here so that a private citizen could land a helicopter during that process was the background noise of I-40 was just as loud as the helicopter is not a scientific method but certainly our ears heard that once every generation we need to make a difficult decision for the future of our community keep in mind that if you approve this zoning tonight and the light rail does not happen nothing else can happen on this property but right now it's the right thing for the future of our children and grandchildren, thank you Thank you Mr. Joule Vijay Sivaraman Hello Mayor, Town Council Thank you very much for letting me speak My name is Vijay Sivaraman I live at 200 High Street in Carborough I'm also a faculty member at North Carolina Century University which I'm very proud of and I also serve as a member of the affordable housing board so these issues are all very important we have everything we were discussing and what I feel and it feels very strongly about and I've felt for quite a while now is that this light rail is a necessary thing for the triangle, it's a necessary thing to move us forward and also to make to allow for our community to have access in a way that is certainly hindered right now we want to open the triangle up we want to open it up and it can be possible I want my students to be able to have access to Duke University and to UNC Chapel Hill and to the communities around us and not be restricted to their bubble of NCCU and the same for UNC students and Duke students I see this as a really really important step towards improving our community and unifying it in a way that's very necessary so I thank you very much for thinking about this and I hope that this moves forward quickly thank you now we'll hear from Jonathan Hosea could you please state your name and address I'm Jonathan Hosea 713 Ken Street I'm a recent Duke grad I've also worked in sort of community organizations and also volunteered in many different capacities and I've just been I've liked enough to stay back in this community and I've been able to see through my own experiences about how it takes public transport I can sort of speak to the lack of access and the amount of time even that it takes to even access places and I think the rezoning efforts will eventually lead towards the light rail we've been official even to me and then members of the community who also use public transport as well just thinking back to I was trying to make a render target even from work I get on the bus it takes me 30 minutes to get to the place I need to go and I just dropping something off take it back 30 more minutes an hour of my day has just been lost in transit for a simple drop off at target and I'm somebody who is working actively in the community and I like to be on the bus to sort of see folks and everything but that's not a thing that you can do in a nine to five so a work day and then add that on top of members of the community who are also using it who are members who are linked to the organizations that I'm working with who struggle to have that access when they have to wait 30 minutes to get to that bus then you miss that bus because of accessibility issues that somebody may have and it causes a longer sort of transit for the bus to back to the Durham station to get that next 30 minutes and then after five an extra hour and the amount of time added to transit sort of it leads us to maybe lateness at work and different other issues that arise in the community and I think that's where the rezoning efforts will best lead towards this light rail project, yeah Thank you Mr. Jose we'll now hear from Chris Selby Mr. Selby, please give us your name and address, you have two minutes from Dr. Chris Selby I own my own home at 138 Celeste Circle in the Eastwood Park neighborhood of the city of Durham Eastwood Park is to the south and the romp is to the north of the planned Lee Village station in our area changes are already occurring in advance of light rail the chapel run development underway behind me is of higher density than originally proposed due to guidance from the planning commission who noted the need for higher density as a result, new two-story homes are now packed in 25 feet behind many of our properties they are out of character for Eastwood Park and the higher density brings more traffic to our street also part of our neighborhood is now in the Lee Village Compact neighborhood tier and a north-south connector road between NC54 and the Lee Village station is planned to go right through our neighborhood and displace one home sacrifices such as these are reasonable for us and for others living near the city, considering the improvements that rail will bring furthermore, certain issues may be mitigated or may not be really significant for example, I planted hollies on my property that will hide the tall homes built close behind me and noise from a rail line passing on our east side will likely be modest compared to NC54 and I-40 traffic I find the romp to be favorably located and a good use for the Farrington Road plot that slopes down to the busy and very loud interstate a planning commissioner speaking for constituents, I believe complained that a planned romp building is undesirable because it is steel in class and it should be brick go-triangle responded that steel in class is cost-effective and I agree furthermore, I think that the objection raised is an example of reaching for reasons to complain about the romp site and light rail in general I believe that the romp will fit in well and that the rail line will enrich our lives in property values Thank you, Dr. Selby We will now hear from Sue Hunter Could you please give us your name and address Do you have two minutes? My name is Sue Hunter and I live at 607 Rock Creek Road in Chapel Hill I'm a former Durham resident and I voted for the transit tax when I lived here in Durham I was Chris's neighbor for 10 years in Eastwood Park so I lived in the area where the proposed romp site is I also commute to work at Duke so I'm the target audience for this project I'm one of the people they want to get off the road I've been following the development of the light rail and I've been attending meetings in support of this project for over 10 years I'm here tonight to ask that you approve the rezoning request for this project I'm also really sympathetic to the concerns of the neighbors who opposed the project because I lived there for 10 years and I've been in this room before to advocate for my neighborhood I often felt people were trying to push projects away from their neighborhood and into my neighborhood so I know what that feels like I do believe GoTriangle has done their due diligence on this project they've heard the concerns of neighbors and they've made modifications to the design you know all the reasons why this project is important so I won't reiterate those I just wanted to offer a non-scientific opinion as a former resident I disagree that the area is quiet I lived there for 10 years I took my dogs on long walks deep into the woods and I could always hear the sound of the highway I was I also really changed my mind about the noise levels when I became a parent and I had a rude introduction to sleep deprivation I was up at all hours of the night and where I previously thought it was quiet and I could sleep perfectly well when I was sitting up for hours trying to soothe my children and get them to go back to sleep I realized how loud it was and I heard the motorcycles and the trucks going over bumps and making booming sounds as soon as I could but I do think that there can be sounds that seem very very loud if you're awake to hear them but they wouldn't bother you necessarily if you're asleep and they won't prevent you from going back to sleep if you wake up non-scientific purely my opinion so I ask that you approve this rezoning request tonight thank you we'll now hear from Kevin Primus Mr. Primus please give us your name and address you have two minutes my name is Kevin Primus my name is Kevin 03 Kilgoe Drive in Durham Mr. Mayor and City Council thank you for the time to speak I don't speak on behalf of any organization that I work with but I will make some references to some of the organizations in the work that they've done currently I serve on the steering committee for partnership for Healthy Durham and every three years we do a community health assessment and we ask what does the community feel is important and of those priorities what is important for this project access to care access to affordable housing and also obesity, diabetes and food access and I just want to share because I understand that some folks are going to disproportionately sacrifice for this project and we are asking everyone to sacrifice for the public good we're asking everyone to sacrifice for a more sustainable future and right now if you go to other cities around the country to take this step and not to make these sacrifices things are not good I got a chance to visit Atlanta the other week and to see MARTA which is their transit program and they have MARTA marks where you can have fresh access to fresh food on a weekly basis at many different stations it's not just a matter of hey we want to have transit it's a matter of lots of folks who can't make it to these meetings and all the dynamics that go into public decisions who can't speak and we want to make this an opportunity for those folks to also be able to have access to health care to affordable housing and to food access and so we're asking some of our members of our community to sacrifice and it's disproportionate we understand that we do know that City Council will make a decision we hope that we can all support you in the decision that you make thank you so much Eric Plow Eric Plow is first I'm sorry did I miss you I'll get you next I'm sorry Hello I'm Eric Plow I live at Fogmed Stream Court which is pretty close to where this place is supposed to be located you're going to hear a lot from a lot of my neighbors who are totally opposed to the project a few years ago they tried to take away my property rights and it required legal fighting on my part for over a year to get my property rights back and it was not a fun experience I can pretty much guarantee you that if you don't grant their wishes they're probably going to sue you also and I hope you have the courage to work for the good of everyone in the area not just a few neighbors thank you I'm sorry I don't have your name could you tell me your name my name is Shayna Nanavati I signed up late and my car got lost alright well that's fine tell us your name and address and you have two minutes thank you my name is Shayna Nanavati and I am a resident of Southwest Durham I live at 1707 Valley Run 2707 and I look forward to the day that I can take a light rail to come to these meetings instead of having to drive tonight's conversation about race a primarily white neighborhood is threatening to delay a public infrastructure project that will improve life for much of Durham's black and brown population this is a story that has been repeated for decades the poor disproportionately face the consequences of a lack of public investment in infrastructure white flight from the core of the city in the 50s and 60s led to desolation in Central Durham Southwest Durham is a product of the resulting sprawl now that the city center is becoming richer and whiter some people are realizing the need for better public transportation and bike and pedestrian safety across the city but make no mistake poor people of color will see the greatest benefits from these improved services for they are the ones who walk bike or bus everywhere rain or shine night or day yes this light rail will greatly benefit downtown Durham businesses and university students who will benefit from this project the most are the people that have to take an hour-long bus ride to work because they cannot afford a car the site that has been selected for the light rail yard is the least environmentally damaging site that also means the least expensive Durham has already invested millions of dollars into this project and a delay at this stage would be devastating an article in The Herald Sun an opponent in an article in The Herald Sun an opponent of the project was quoted as saying Durham has plenty of industrial zones and this is not one of them for a reason end quote so where are Durham's industrial zones historically where have they been located in black neighborhoods in East Durham if a small group of mostly white folks manage to succeed in obstructing this project Durham has a much bigger problem it must reckon with so mayor council members ask yourselves whether this city will be built equitably or whether you will continue down the path of a legacy of segregationist policies and please vote for the rezoning that will allow this project to move forward thank you Mr. Gully Mr. Gully I want to welcome you back to these chambers as well do you want to preside at this meeting no sir Mr. Mayor members of the council thank you good evenings could be with you my name is Wip Gully I live at 4803 Montville Drive Durham, North Carolina I'm going to endeavor Mr. Mayor to take you up on your suggestion to use less of my time with regard to the rezoning case before you a lot of good points have already been made I don't know how to add to that you all I know in fact you'll know everything I'm going to say before I say it but you're clear that the vote tonight is not whether you like a particular project in every respect but it's whether rezoning application meets requirements in Durham for that to be considered and approved or not so the only two things that occur to me that I would want to highlight or lift up to you all are that the folks you've heard from just now are certainly individuals but they represent some wonderful parts of Durham some organizations like Durham CAN like the Durham Housing Authority like Durham People's Alliance like the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit organizations that actually have a voice not just for themselves but for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Durham residents across this community and those are folks that are here tonight with their spokespeople talking about this the other thing really is a personal hope one would always like to think that we'll have vigorous conversations in Durham as we do from time to time about a variety of issues but that at the end of the day perhaps not just a lot of heat but some light will come from it and some greater understanding and compassion on all sides and I certainly hope that that's a part of the outcome tonight more accuracy and our understanding of what's being talked about and what might happen with that said thank you Mr. Mayor oh you my thank you very much Mr. Gully are there any other speakers who have signed up now as proponents of this rezoning who have not heard from anyone else in this room who has signed up as a proponent of the rezoning that I have not heard from okay we will now move to the opponents and I am going to call the names of the opponents and as I do if you also wouldn't mind moving to this side of the room and okay thank you as I call your name I am going to begin with David Cochetto second will be Kristen Zanzalian then Marion Strand then I am going to move into the first speakers from the group who would like to speak in order I am going to call Ruth McKinney Ruth Ann McKinney B.R. Hoffman Kathy Abernathy John Iconometis and I am sorry Dr. Iconometis if I have your name all wrong I apologize Jeff Prather and Ray West and if you all could all make your way over to this side of the room that would be great anyone who does not feel that they can stand for a period of time of course keep your seat and we will be happy to figure out a way to accommodate that no problem alright just to remind everyone each of the speakers has two minutes and you have a clock over here so I am going to begin with David Cochetto David Cochetto are you here Ruth Ann can you come up here and say that I didn't hear you David is not here his wife is ill okay thank you so much sorry to hear that second speaker is Kristen Zanzalian good evening mayor and members of the council I am Kristen Zanzalian of 5103 Stockton Way I am mommy to four children we have attended Creekside Elementary over the past 10 years with several more years to go I am a member of the Creekside PTA and two of my children are still attending Creekside and also resides in an impacted neighborhood we are here tonight as the last chance to speak up before a significant vote before the council however no one gave us warning of the gravity of the decisions before the council until ironically just before this past Thanksgiving holiday Go Triangle has not reached out to the Creekside community or parents in a timely way to allow us to contemplate the impact and proximity of our school to the romp we need community with information communication sorry we need communication with information and reassurance of how the negative impacts on our children will be mitigated we have not been provided with either that leads us to conclude that Go Triangle has not considered carefully the well-being of our children the future citizens and leaders of Durham I have a list of concerns that I've outlined in a bullet format Creekside Elementary is a focus one title school Creekside parents and families with over 900 children were not notified of the romp before recently personally I learned of it Tuesday November 27th you have many friends whose children are bilingual with parents that need translators to understand these complex discussions no translators were offered to our knowledge this romp is coming into an established neighborhood with an established school that serves protected and vulnerable groups these important concerns need time with clear communication for adequate consideration and input Go Triangle knows the large number of enrollment students at Creekside they chose to ignore the romp's impacts on instructional time through public engagement meetings that they have been held about the light rail the details were in general and have been scarce about the relation to the Creekside Elementary and the proximity to the romp at a meeting for Creekside parents thank you Mrs. Insalien thank you very much we'll now hear from Marion Strand Ms. Strand you have two minutes my name is Marion Strand I live at 108 Pinot Court in the villas at Colbarber good evening Mr. Mayor and members of the city council I'm here speaking on behalf of myself and my husband Leonard Strand who could not be here tonight this is a highly charged political time in Durham for anything about the light rail people have strong feelings Go Triangle has made it clear that a no vote the rezoning question in front of you would amount to a no vote to the light rail itself because it would kill Go Triangles' chance to receive needed state and federal funding but this rezoning hearing has to have a different purpose it can't be about approving this rezoning request because you were afraid you will kill the light rail if you don't it can't be about approving the rezoning because the site was already selected right or wrong years ago this is about whether Go Triangles proposed project as it stands now fits with existing development whether the parcel is big enough to handle the romp and still fit in the area whether anyone is adversely impacted by it whether it's consistent with your own policies and plans that we have relied on when we move to this area before you tonight before you vote tonight I ask that you each search your hearts and be sure that you can answer those questions dispassionately without feeling the pressure of Go Triangles' need for federal funding clouding your judgment and without being burdened by the fact that Go Triangles picked a bad site for the romp if you can't completely be objective I ask you to refuse yourself from voting to that end I want to add an email my husband received from the mayor exactly one year ago December 6, 2017 quote the site the romp has already been made after a lengthy process which included an enormous amount of participation over many years I support the current siding of the romp and more important this site has already been included in the final routing of the light rail line and is now in the engineering phase the siding of the romp has been decided upon and is not being revisited Mr. Mayor we all know you are an honorable person I respectfully ask that you refuse yourself from voting tonight, thank you thank you Mr. Ant very good Ruth Ann McKinnon Ruth Ann McKinney please state your name and address and you're the first of the speaker in this group that will be speaking in order yes thank you Mayor good evening my name is Ruth McKinney I live at 5139 Niagara Drive in Culbarber which is the community of seniors that lives directly across from this site tonight's hearing is not about the future of mass transit in Durham it's about the rezoning hearing as you've heard the Mayor say the only question before you is whether GO Transit's project as it is presently drawn can rationally be determined to support a rezoning can it support the change in this land in this neighborhood given the development that is already there the project will be directly across from a senior center with 120 homes of people who are restricted to sell their home and perpetuity only to seniors within a stone's throw of this site similarly it's down the road from an elementary school within sight of the elementary school that's a Title I school with over 900 students I'd like a show of hands from people who are here from those groups and others in the neighborhood who are supporting us so there are lots of people impacted by this and I know you know that and I know you're trying to make a good decision the issue here is someone's going to be impacted we're asking you to look with an open eye and a fresh mind at the realities of who is being impacted by this aging seniors and school children you're not getting all the facts from GO Triangle GO Triangle is a good company but they are marketing the project and they want you to believe what they've marketed we're asking you to listen to the facts that we're going to present this group has met for four weeks with GO Triangle with executives John Talmadge and his staff and they've been diligently to find ways to mitigate the project every suggestion we've made they've listened to politely it hasn't happened and the reason is over and over the same thing the site is too small is what they tell us and the project plan is too far down the pipeline so they can't redraw it so if you are hoping to vote yes in the hopes that we will then continue these conversations and find solution it won't work thank you very much B.R. Hoffman B.R. Hoffman nice to see you I want to say to Ms. McKinney and Ms. Hoffman thank you for hosting me recently I enjoyed it very much good evening I'm B.R. Hoffman I live at 211 Pinot Court and I'm the current president of our COA in Colbarber I'm a firm believer that if you think you're objecting to something get the facts before closing your mind so I dug in I was fortunate to be able to take a field trip to Charlotte with Council Member Reese Council Member Alston Ruth Ann Go Triangle Executive Jeff Green we were hoping that we would like the romp and that it would fit on Farrington Road but instead we left Charlotte more concerned than before we went up to that trip all I knew was what I'd heard from Go Triangle there I saw for myself what a romp is if you open your blue folders the first thing you'll see is a packet of pictures clipped together please pull that packet out the top picture is taken from the home page of the romp romp section of Go Triangle website it is the only picture there that shows the drawing of the site now look at the second picture we drew on that picture so you could see what was missing the graphic on the home page does not show Colbarber it does not show Creekside Elementary and we drew them on the drawing moving on I'd like to give you a short time to flip through the remaining pictures from our trip to Charlotte and other romps around the country well at the romp in Charlotte we had a disturbing conversation with the director of the Charlotte romp who was hosting our trip he said what you're planning for the Durham romp won't work miss Hoffman thank you we will have an opportunity miss Hoffman we will have an opportunity to look at the rest of these pictures as the speakers are speaking so thank you very much for giving them to us Kathy Abernethy welcome you have two minutes thank you my name is Kathy Abernethy I currently live at 233 Culp Hill Drive in Durham City I'm a 35 year resident of this town city and I love volunteering I have lots of civic things here so I come to this to oppose this because we read Go Triangles technical reports on the romp and they gave us disturbing information that had never been put forth before this will be presented right now I'm telling you that we have over 100 residents in Culp-Arbor that are over 55 it's an age restricted community EPCON properties listened to the city of Durham and had a requirement that 90% of our homes be sold to people over the age of 55 it's been since 2009 that the Durham city records document this over 55 community phase one had 65 homes and 95 residents but because they were quadriplexes we were not in the communication system from the planning department it wasn't until 2015 June that they hand delivered letters to us that the Farrington Road had been selected as the alternative phase two did not begin to build until 2017 after the decision had been made these people have had no input or no visitation from GoTriangle or anyone else in this community the city of Durham GoTriangle have never acknowledged that we have special needs just like other folks in this community who do have special needs but just like Forest at Duke we have health needs that need to be looked at you've already seen the extent to which we've been excluded thank you thank you very much Ms. Abernathy John Economides thank you Mr. Mayor members of the CEDA council I'm John Economides 19 San Rimini Way Durham I'm Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery at UNC Chapel Hill and as a medical practitioner I want to speak to you briefly about the effects of one of the issues related to this system which is environmental noise the World Health Organization and other scientific groups have studied and reported extensively on the health effects of environmental noise much of this information is common knowledge if you have aging parents or grandparents you've experienced them and here are some of the facts populations that are especially vulnerable to the negative consequences of noise including people with medical problems people recovering at home and elderly people in general in the general facility of this system there will be people that have respiratory disorders Parkinson's disease early stage dementia several recovering from fractures cardiac surgery, stroke and cancer uninterrupted sleep is a prerequisite for good physiological and mental functioning and the repeated tram squeals which are anticipated as a result of this building of this station will severely threaten these cycles some of the immediate effects include difficulty falling asleep being awakened changes in sleep phases increases in blood pressure and heart rate the next day effects of sleep deprivation include increased fatigue and lack of energy impairment of attention depression and mood disturbances improneness for errors and accidents this is especially relevant for elderly which show that short night time sleep increases the likelihood of falls and injuries the late effects of chronic noise exposure include high blood pressure high blood sugar high blood lipids, heptic ulcer disease cerebral vascular disease and years of life lost it is of interest that the guideline development group of the World Health Organization recommends reducing noise levels from rail traffic at night to below 44 decibels because this is associated with decreased adverse effects associated with illness so I cannot help but conclude that this station will have a severe adverse effect on the senior population in the vicinity thank you very much Mr. Jeff Prather Mr. Jeff Prather I'm sorry Mr. Jeff Prather sorry about that Mr. Ray West you would be next and I'm going to also ask that while Mr. Prather is speaking and Mr. West if the following folks could join them over here in this order Joe Carr Linda Spalone Andrew Johnson Alicia Joaquin Aguayo Ken Hidbard Eric Hagen and Betty Sue Masters if you all could come over here to this side of the room as well to be prepared to speak and Mr. Prather welcome please give us your name and address you have two minutes my name is Jeff Prather I am a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel BioEnvironmental Engineer I was an environmental PE I ran the Air Force Hearing Conservation Program I ran the Air Force with various bases I ran the Air Force Hazardous Noise Program anybody else in here surveyed aircraft and done comprehensive noise surveys okay I can tell you I don't know even where to begin I've got a speech here that I'm trying to maintain my cool and read I'm used to facts one of my comments is have you read this thousands of dollars for this document I didn't make up these numbers I know how to interpret a cotton pick in DBA a DBA is a DBA 136 DBA is louder than many jet aircraft they say 136 if it's not and they need to fire whoever did their risk assessment because it sure got the community activated they have 118 DBA they got a 99 DBA what's the noise level I don't know do you know can you vote for something you're going to rely on a friend of a friend that we were told last Tuesday they were trying to get the elements the numbers from how can you vote for something and not have any valid information I'm an engineer I deal with facts I can interpret facts I cannot interpret this the friend, fast meter, slow meter response I could go on and on about the technical problems when was the meter calibrated now some people behind me are going to give you some more presentations I'm running out of time I would be happy to sit down and talk with them with somebody that can give me this has gone to FTA this is what their risk assessment is based on don't you think we're going to have a case if we want to raise up where did this low number come from a friend I'm sorry I I'm sorry I lost it Mr. Ray West Mr. West please give us your name and address you have two minutes my name is Ray West my address is 5139 Niagara Drive and I appreciate the opportunity Mr. Mayor and City Council and City Clerk to provide these comments I'm also providing an affidavit from Dr. Nobo retired Lieutenant Colonel from U.S. Air Force who has a master's degree and a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences and Engineering from UNC Public Health he has 20 years of experience as a bio environmental engineer during his active duty with the Air Force he oversaw noise impacts on Air Force bases around the world he reached a conclusion that based on his professional training and experience GoTriangle has not conducted has not conducted a thorough technically valid examination of how the ROMP will impact local residents in the Villas of Colbarber and elsewhere he goes on to say that it is not possible to make a rational determination about the compatibility of the ROMP with the existing development nor to assess the severity of the adverse impacts of the ROMP not an accurate noise study we don't have that GoTriangle's request for rezoning of the site should not be granted until carefully technically accurate noise study is conducted and until GoTriangle sits down with those effective and mitigates this in writing so that it works out so that it benefits everyone thank you Mr. Joseph Carr Mr. Carr you have two minutes welcome thank you my name is Joe Carr I live at 15 San Remedy Way Durham I'm an electrical engineer I'm well versed in signal systems including acoustics also being an engineer the site being selected is not the right site because it requires too many sharp turns it requires the placement of a number of trees to cut the sound barrier so let me talk a little bit about the clear cutting it's about 100 feet of well established trees these will be replaced apparently with a four foot berm and a line of basically decorative trees I'll get into a little bit more detail in a second the GoTriangle has estimated that the clear cutting of these trees will increase the noise level at least 10 dB well only 10 dB is two times the sound level so at least two times the site also requires two sharp turns again because of its size and GoTriangle's numbers not mine is the rail squeal will be about 136 dB and do you know how loud 136 dB is an air civil defense air siren is about 136 dB Chrysler builds an air civil defense siren that ranges three miles it's actually powered by a 440 horsepower air compressor engine to put that out the air horns that you use at the public or at your sporting events those are about 120 dB if you've ever been sitting next to one of those it's 40 of those to be equivalent to 130 60 dB it's not linearly additive the 4-foot berm will not suppress the sound enough and the decorative trees put on top will not one good example or one good way to think about this is you take 100s thank you very much I appreciate it miss Boulogne you have two minutes welcome oh well you've introduced me but I live at 5223 Niagara Drive in Durham and I am again speaking about the noises that will be admitted from the ramp if the zoning is approved these noises will be most damaging to residential households at night because as you know from life experience and noise seems louder at night when there's less background noise to disguise it some noises will be the sounds of train wheel wheels going around tight curves within the site again as life experiences tell you high pitch sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard are far more intrusive than lower pitch sounds at any volume sudden sounds like horns, alarms and doors industrial doors suddenly slamming are far worse than constant low grade white noise you're being asked by GoTriangle in the playing department to believe that the noise being admitted from this industrial facility will have at best a noise impact classified as moderate impact on only 13 homes along Farrington Road and a noise impact classified as no impact on the nearby school no impact on the other 110 homes in Cope Harbor no impact on the children in trailers classroom trailers or outdoors on a playground GoTriangle is asking that you accept that their data being misinterpreted by us or was reported erroneously and without further study and you should grant rezoning you're being asked to assume they are right and we are wrong about what their data established and they are asking this despite the fact that they have changed their numbers really really important numbers at the 11th hour just days before this hearing finally you're being asked to conclude without an adequate noise study that the noise can be managed these conclusions are simply not rational the criteria for changing the comprehensive plan has not been met please vote no thank you Mr. Andrew Johnson Mr. Johnson you have two minutes my name is Andrew Johnson I live at 5102 Stockton Way I want to address why we were talking about noise instead of talking about agreements we've reached with GoTriangle about ways to mitigate noise the planning department's consolidated staff report that was presented to the Planning Commission on October 9th there was no mention of noise not a single word and yet that document was used to assess whether you should grant GoTriangle's rezoning request a group of concerned neighbors from Culp Harbor and surrounding areas began to research the impact of noise simultaneously with the help of council members Rees and others we began to meet regularly with GoTriangle to find ways to mitigate the adverse impacts of this industrial use in a residential area noise became central to our discussions ironically GoTriangle then filed its supplemental environmental assessment that included a 99 page noise and vibration report this October as laypersons we began searching for a noise expert to help us understand the report but could not find anybody we asked GoTriangle if they could find an expert but they could not either eventually we located two noise experts in our own neighborhoods Lieutenant Colonel Prather and retired Lieutenant Colonel Nagel who was submitted in affidavit but could not be here tonight despite our efforts and time committed in the end of our talks the end of our talks led nowhere GoTriangle made no concessions in our meetings our last meeting was this past Tuesday we then asked Mr. Talmadge if he was willing to put any concessions in writing addressing the concerns and requests we had made he answered no under the UDO developers must notify residents when they begin to develop a plan with Durham Planning Department in March of 2018 when GoTriangle began his development plan work no residents were notified and for reasons that Creekside parents will address the school was equally in the dark we learned about the rezoning request only when signs were posted on site in September and letters went out to property owners within a thousand feet of the ray yard site please vote no tonight in your rezoning request thank you Thank you Mr. Johnson I'm here to congratulate Gabriela Valdivia Welcome Ms. Valdivia you have two minutes Good evening My name is Gabriela Valdivia I live in Prescott Place 4906 Stockton Way Durham I'm a mother, a citizen of Durham and a geography professor at UNC Chapel Hill imagine the report that determines whether a romp is built near your house uses the wrong numbers to make that determination and this is the case for residents of Culp Arbor I am here to explain how a major error in GoTriangle's 2018 noise and vibration report which provides the information for supporting a romp from Farrington Road is critical to your rezoning decision tonight and to the quality of life of residents of Culp Arbor this past Thursday GoTriangle notified us by phone about errors on table 6-3 which summarizes the level of noise impact that Culp Arbor will experience at the romp before mitigation this is in your packet GoTriangle said that the errors were a typo the result of inverted numbers and that the changes did not change the results but they do they change everything please take a look at your copy of table 6-3 on the top row on the chart are the Culp Arbor figures the changes that GoTriangle gave us on Thursday are circled in red to the right the first number 4.7 represents the increase in noise experience at Culp Arbor if the romp is built the next number 4.0 is the threshold number for determining severe impact if the level is severe under FTA guidelines the FTA recommends against building if possible the conclusion then is obvious and determined by these numbers the increase in the noise caused by the project will be 4.7 and any number of severe classification the 12 houses in Culp Arbor previously classified as having moderate impacts must be classified as having severe impacts but on Friday GoTriangle's Jeff Green confirmed that they will not change this all 12 homes will continue to be classified as having moderate impact we are at a loss to explain why that would be please vote no thank you thank you thank you Mayor Schull thank you council members my name is Joaquin Aguayo and I live at 4901 Stockton Way I want to address Durham's noise ordinance which prohibits noises louder than 60 decibels in the day and 50 at night the rail yard is a 24 hour operation and most noise occurrences happening at night enforcing the noise ordinance would fall on the residents in the area many of those being seniors at Culp Arbor a citizen concerned about the noise would contact the police they would come out and measure the noise and would cite someone in violation using this procedure the senior citizens of Culp Arbor will likely call the police continuously due to the unrelenting noise intrusions from the ongoing operations at the rail yard there is clearly noise being generated on the ROMP site that will be greater than 50 decibels of noise of course Go Triangle hopes that that noise will be sufficiently reduced by the time it reaches a person that it won't violate the noise ordinance however despite our asking Go Triangle has been unable to assure us that this will happen in addition the noise study itself provides absolutely no data that tells us at what distance from the trains over the 50 decibel noise again Go Triangle is asking you to decide that the rail yard is a fitting neighbor and meets your criteria for approving a change to the comprehensive plan without adequate information to reach that decision until you have hard data indicating that the ROMP will not violate Durham's noise ordinances please vote no thank you very much Good evening my name is Ken Hibbard and I live at 105 Wicklow Place Go Triangle has proposed but not committed to measures that they claim will mitigate noise from the train yard with rubber wheels track lubrication, sound shielding of wheels to date other light rail lines that have employed these technologies including Seattle, Phoenix and Los Angeles that have met with marginal success as a matter of fact they now measure decibel levels that exceed their original estimates the noise complaints continue Go Triangle has not proposed any mitigation for additional noise from this facility they've stated that it will be impactful surrounding communities with break noise bell and horn testing on daily and evening basis and squeals from improperly tight radius turns in the yard additionally in our neighborhood talks with Go Triangle and Mr. Talmage and his team were unable to confirm that Go Triangle has a budget to cover mitigation costs and was not willing to make a written commitment to create such a budget as part of the rezoning request we are concerned because if Go Triangle runs out of funds there is no way without a written commitment to force it to pay to mitigate noise impact in this neighborhood or the schools under FTA guidelines such mitigation is discretionary left up to Go Triangle's judgment we need the city council to require more from Go Triangle please vote now thank you Mr. Hibbert we'll now hear from Mr. Eric Hagen Mr. Hagen before you start though I'm going to ask the next group of speakers to come up and join you over here on this side Ms. Lynn Emmerich Lewaskia known in Ross Leslie Johnson Chesa Hines Jennifer Hodgkinson Rhonda Waddell Ann Von Holley and I'm sorry if I didn't get some of those names right if you all could join us over here on this right side and Mr. Hagen welcome please give us your name and address and you have two minutes yes sir thank you Mr. Mayor members of the city council my name is Eric Hagen I'm a Durham native and long-term resident and I live at 4904 Stockton Way one of the few mitigation measures that Go Triangle has committed to in writing its proposed plan before you is to build a 20-foot buffer along Farrington Road after failing to get the endorsement of the planning commission for the project they recently committed to adding a 4-foot earthen berm in a single row of 8-foot evergreen trees these mitigation measures will not be sufficient they will not protect the neighborhood from this jarring industrial site situated in the middle of a residential area next to a senior neighborhood and within sight elementary school now I would like to demonstrate what these mitigations really amount to this is a 4-foot sit which represents the height of the berm they are proposing to build my friends with me here are holding a 20-foot ribbon which is the width of the proposed buffer now Go Triangle is leading people to believe that there will be a 90-foot buffer but in actuality there is only a 90-foot setback to the front of the building the front part of that 90-foot setback will be a vegetated buffer with only 40% opacity once the trees have fully matured conversely that means that 60% of the buffer will be able to be seen directly through the rest of that setback will be a parking lot sidewalks and dumpsters all on land that is currently heavily wooded it contains valuable wetlands and streams in wildlife finally they have offered a single row of 8-foot evergreen trees at the edge of the 20-foot buffer the top of my hand is 8 feet tall and this is the height of those trees they are proposing to plant every 14 feet along that buffer this 20-foot buffer single row of trees and 4-foot berm along only part of Farrington Road are not sufficient please say no Dr. Betty Sue Masters Dr. Betty Sue Masters Dr. Betty Sue Masters folks I don't mind you applauding but I would like it if it could be brief so I can get these folks up here and out of here I'm going to be here for a really long time tonight a lot longer than you are so help me out a little bit ok Dr. Betty Sue Masters to be followed by Lynn Emery Mayor Shull and members of the City Council I want to first say that my comments are not to be construed to be against master that's not the end of my talk you did it very well it was very short but you did a great job I'm Dr. Betty Sue Masters a Durham citizen at 18 Cortona Drive and a graduate of Duke University with a PhD in biochemistry I performed biomedical research for almost 50 years I've served as national president of my professional society and I'm currently an adjunct professor in biochemistry in order to provide you with some critical information I think you need to make an informed decision which I hope it will be about rezoning for the ROMP rail yard I'm going to address an issue called control fluids which is the terminology used in the reports without any explanation of what they were they state in their document that will be used stored and transported to and from the site in the interest of time I'm going to address only two examples first a 1000 gallon oil tank almost 20 times the size of a 55 gallon drum will store petroleum products on the site this quantity of flammable liquid stored and transported on busy Farrington Road could potentially explode or leak increasing the leak risk are the presence of electrical high wires and the sparks that are produced by the wheels on the metal tracks no spillage really choosing the site which requires large amounts of flammable fluids near an elementary school and a senior neighborhood is inexplicably poor planning this will also be a minimum of 150 gallons of ammonia known to be toxic of exposed in large quantities even in small quantities ammonia causes burning of the eyes nose throat and respiratory tract and larger amounts can result in blindness, lung damage or even death while it may be unlikely that this will occur it can happen in their 900 children not too far away most of the risk is not from everyday use but from unexpected, unanticipated unpredictable emergencies I hope you will vote no thank you Ms. Raster I'd like to hear now from Ms. Lynn Emmerich Ms. Emmerich welcome you have two minutes my name is Lynn Emmerich 5128 Niagara Drive I'm a new resident of Cope-Arbor and a retired physical therapist and hospital administrator in the fall of 2017 shortly after retiring I lost my home to the floods that devastated Houston after Hurricane Harvey as a result of that loss I'm acutely aware of the need for governments to plan wisely to avoid future catastrophic flooding I was stunned when I found out in November only 5 months after moving into Cope-Arbor that Durham was considering a rezoning application to build an industrial rail facility on the wetlands across the street from my new neighborhood of major concern is the destruction of these wetlands and stream buffers at the ROM site 5 days ago in an article in the news and observer a distinguished UNC professor wrote that climate change will make catastrophic storms more frequent and more damaging to mitigate impervious surfaces yet the ROMF project will do the exact opposite it will create more impervious surfaces just a few weeks ago when we had 4 inches of rain several lanes of I-40 near the NC-54 exit very near the ROMF site were impassable due to flooding as a city that cares about the environment Durham's decision to destroy these wetlands would not be a good one this is simply not the right place for the rail yard one concern I have is for the well-being of the older residents in Cope-Arbor as a healthcare professional I have seen how fragile the health of older adults can be and how they can be affected by environmental disturbances the staff planning report concludes that the rail yard will have no substantial impact on our community right across the street personally I believe the impact will be enormous for the reasons you're hearing this evening I know you're listening tonight please have those messages on your heart as you vote and do not abandon Durham's comprehensive plan under the pressure of making a quick decision driven by a timeline that you did not create please vote no thank you Mr. Mayor and City Council Member thank you Mr. Mayor Ms. Lewaskia Nanon Ross welcome Ms. Ross good evening everyone my name is Lewaskia Nanon and I live at 1815 Capstone Drive I am a practicing attorney at the Creekside Elementary School parent my daughter is in first grade my daughter and I drive to Creekside every morning and I then head off to work on a non-school day like a Saturday it would normally take me 12 minutes to get from my home to school in contrast on a school day it takes about 25 minutes the difference is the traffic occasional mild traffic congestion is tolerable and relatively safe chronic major congestion is something else the city has been working on for a long time and we have been working on increasing development right along the route and more residential development is expected and yet because of the odd shape of this lot go triangles rezoning requests tonight would ask you to agree that Farrington Road could never be widened along that stretch with all due respect increasing development while freezing the present size of the area's that affects our children while the chances of a fire or an explosion or a terrorist incident are low they're not zero as I sat at the corner looking at the rezoning signs just this morning it gave me chills to imagine what would happen if every Creekside parent had to rush to the school at once for an emergency at the wrong go triangle tells us it will work with Durham safety officials to come up with a plan to keep children safe I am not a public safety officer but even I see that there's no good solution if the romp as if the romp as designed is built on this site go triangle has picked the wrong site it planned poorly by not factoring in the impacts the romp would have on our school in Durham's children you do not have to continue down this wrong path go triangle can back up and choose a better suited site it should go without saying that an industrial facility like this should not be this near a public elementary school please vote no thank you Ms. Leslie Johnson welcome you have two minutes my name is Dr. Leslie Johnson I live at 5102 Stockton way in Durham I'm a parent of two children who attend Creekside elementary school and I am strongly opposed to this rezoning motion I'm a homeowner close to the proposed rail yard site and a member of the gathering church with which meets weekly at Creekside I'm assistant professor at North Carolina Central University and have been a practicing speech language pathologist in the Durham and Chapel Hill communities for the last 15 years as a speech pathologist I am keenly aware of how the rezoning motion will negatively impact Creekside students since 1995 we have known that these groups of students are at risk for learning problems in noisy classroom environments children with hearing loss and other special needs non-native English speaking students children younger than 13 to name a few this obviously encompasses all the close to 900 students at Creekside especially the 8% who are there with special needs the effect of noise in the classroom decreases comprehension of information reduces academic achievement and increases social emotional problems increased listening effort is required by students in noisy environment thus limiting concentration children exposed to chronic noise at school have poorer reading abilities poorer memory and poorer performance own nationally standardized tests road traffic noise significantly impairs reading speed and basic mathematics for school-aged children chronic noise exposure at school is associated with increased arousal noise annoyance and sleep disturbance imagine how this impacts the special needs children whose very diagnoses already make them prone to such things environmental noise has a significant negative impact for elementary students who are particularly affected by the noises that are random and distinct I would argue that the wheel screech from the rail yard is going to be both random although frequent and distinct as for our teachers noisy classroom environments have been reported to increase teacher frustration as well as increase vocal fatigue thus contributing to a high percentage of teacher turnover thank you miss Johnson our next speaker will be Chesa Hines Miss Hines welcome you have two minutes thank you good evening council my name is Chesa Hines I reside at 3763 southwest Durham drive I'm a mother to two children that attend Creekside Elementary tonight I ask you to vote no on the rezoning of the area where Creekside Elementary Durham public school is located Creekside is a title one school meaning at least 40% of its students are from low income homes qualifying the school for extra funding and advocacy to combat low academic performance that is studied to come with living at or below poverty levels with that being said please consider the children at the school who learn in the trailers parked on the campus a campus which is less than a quarter mile away from the proposed maintenance facility site there are fourth and fifth graders in the trailers on the campus grounds and those trailers are not adequately equipped to handle loud screeching noises that the trains will bring and fifth graders grade students at least 120 of them considered low income will have to deal with constant noise while learning and playing making a day at school a highly stressful experience these are the same children that will have to take the end of year exams at the end of a very noisy learning environment also many of the children at the school live in the neighborhood you are planning to rezone meaning they will never be able to get away from the noise the location for this romp is not a good solution for any involved please be aware that this is a maintenance facility not a station which is a very big difference please hear the concerns and angst of the community that will have to live with this decision once again I say no to rezoning the ferris and emphasis road area so industrial from residential also as a resident as being from the Bronx I am very aware of people making promises that are not kept the new Yankee stadium was promised to have a park for the neighborhood and to have less congestion because of new parking that was built in 2009 it is now 2018 and there were funds that were not enough thank you now here from Jennifer Hodgkinson you need some tech help Miss Hodgkinson my name is Jennifer Hodgkinson I live at 602 Wincrest road in Durham before I get into my speech I just want to point out that two thirds of our students are minorities the majority of them I wanted to show you a picture of my daughter Emery who is a student at Creekside I brought her a picture just so you could put a face to her story on March 3rd of last year Emery collapsed as she was getting ready to start the beginning of weeks of endless doctor visits testing and specialists we were worried she might have a tumor because she couldn't walk right she was diagnosed with labyrinthitis it's inflammation of the inner ear this causes severe vertigo dizziness nausea it was caused by an ear infection and if you have kids you know how common ear infections are and how sensitive their ears are she had to undergo months of physical therapy to regain her balance and she's still very sensitive to loud noises on bad days she has to eat her lunch with her teachers instead of in the cafeteria she has to skip activities in the gym or field trips on loud buses these are steps her teachers and I take to protect her hearing but if this rail yard is built only 360 yards from the school and if it creates the constant noise to do I would be powerless to protect her Emery is only one child at this school we don't know how this rail yard will impact any of our kids no experts have weighed in no tests have been conducted I ask triangle representatives this week if they've conducted any tests inside the building outside the building upstairs downstairs in the trailers the answer was no those noise levels are expected to far surpass Durham's own legal noise ordinances and the sad thing is that the most parents have not been given any information about this rail yard or the impact it could have on our kids and their education there's a reason other cities build their rail yards away from residential areas don't sacrifice our kids to this poor planning thank you thank you miss Hodgkinson we appreciate your we all have children ourselves and we understand how important they are to you thank you we'll now hear from Ms. Woodell my name is Rhonda Woodell and I live at 4718 Carmen Lane which is in Prescott near the proposed Durham location my daughter is a third grader at Creekside and I'm here to ask you to vote no on the rezoning motion my daughter is my hero because she's overcome many obstacles in her short life she was born at 25 weeks she was one pound 14 ounces and she spent 101 days at Duke as a result she has vision deficits hearing deficits and sensory processing disorder sensory processing disorder is a condition that affects how the brain receives and responds to information coming from the senses this results in heightened senses something minor to you or I can be huge to a child with SPD once their senses are raised they don't easily reset to baseline if they are stimulated throughout the day that afternoon or that evening that child could struggle with everyday life imagine adding 32 wheel schools to their already hectic day there are over 850 students at Creekside and many have a 504 or IEP plan and my daughter's class last year 50% of those students had one of the two these are fairly protected education plans for students with special needs the Creekside staff works to provide a proper learning environment but how are they able to teach children from an industrial and not just these kids but all of our Creekside Eagles during the end of grade testing our students are not allowed to have recess outside nor specials like music because of disruption to the students testing is the real yard going to take a break as well during the testing and during public schools strategic plan it states their goal is to provide a safe school environment that how can you as a city council not assist DPS and sacrifice this school, our school as you prepare to vote I hope you will consider my daughter's health the thought of her having to wear noise cancelling headphones to recess because of the rail yard makes me sick she then goes to after school Creekside and heads home to Prescott Place meaning she'll never get a break from the rail yard noise thank you very much before Ms. Von Holley speaks I'm going to also ask the next group of speakers to come forward please Lutz Hendrick Steve Fromm Phil Post Stephanie Galloway if you can make your way over to the right followed by Gordon Galloway Dottie Williford and Robert Slater if those of you all who was named I have just called could please make your way over to this area over here I would be appreciative meanwhile Ms. Van Holley welcome and you have two minutes thank you my name is Anne Von Holley and I am a parent of children at Creekside Elementary thank you for the opportunity to speak at this hearing against the industrial re-zoning as you have already heard from my fellow Creekside parents this location contains the potential to harm children at a school a quarter of a mile away maybe this harm will be mitigated maybe it will not no one here can honestly claim 100% mitigation of noise exposure the potential for harm at Creekside Elementary remains with this potential for harm policymakers should have notified Creekside parents and guardians of the public hearings for this industrial zoning application they did not I first learned about the zoning hearing from local homeowners on a public forum called Nextdoor afterwards I spoke about this lack of communication at the October City Planning Commission meeting which changed at the 11th hour a small group of parents myself included has scrambled to increase awareness of the rezoning at the school the only way to reach all parents and guardians would be through the school administration but that channel has been closed to us without a doubt a large number of parents and guardians are still not aware of this industrial rezoning application or public hearings in a disproportionate amount that are non-English speakers the three local universities benefiting the most from this rail yard I would also like to thank the Board of Ethics Board in place to protect participants in their studies from harm and ensure consent what has Durham City done to protect the future generations of Creekside school children from harm and at the minimum allow parents and guardians to learn about this rezoning and advocate for future generations as a parent at Creekside I can't give you a good answer I personally hope you vote no but at a minimum please delay this vote no noise pollution at the school follow the spirit of the law and act in an ethical manner thank you very much my name is Lutz Hendricks I live at 7 Cortona Drive in Durham we're asked today, you're asked today to make a fundamental decision about the rump based solely on information that is provided to you by Goal Triangle and this information turns out to be often incomplete or outright misleading I would just talk about one example noise for years Goal Triangle has claimed during the site selection process that the site will have no significant noise impact for the surrounding areas they reached this conclusion even before the first noise study was conducted only in October of this year that Goal Triangle released actual noise estimates years after the site had actually been selected as you heard earlier these noise estimates show that the rump is shockingly loud and yet Goal Triangle still claims that the impact on the surrounding areas will be moderate five days ago these numbers were revised again now on the FDA guidelines the impact on culpable arbor homes is severe but Goal Triangle still claims that the noise will be moderate if I had more time I could talk about many more examples where Goal Triangle words don't match the facts that they themselves provide but let me just mention one more earlier this year Goal Triangle evicted an African-American family who has been lived on the Farrington site for more than 100 years you've never heard anything about this family from Goal Triangle and you never will but you will hear from Mr. Woods later tonight by the point this Goal Triangle has lost the public trust in this place or trust in you to make the right decision tonight please vote no Mr. Hedricks we're now here for Mr. Steve Fromm Mr. Fromm welcome you have two minutes well thank you for the chance to address you my name is Steve Frommy I live at 112 Pino Court in Culp Arbor earlier you heard from a presenter who showed pictures and then of the affected neighborhood and then was describing a visit when she ran out of time I'd like to pick up where she left off she had was being told by the director of the Romphen Charlotte quote what you're planning for the Durham Romphen won't work and quote when pressed he elaborated quote you need double tracks if you don't build it right the first time you will regret it forever and he said he could not imagine how the train course would be delivered Mr. Farrington Go-Triangle staff person with us said quote we are confident that what we have planned will work Mr. Smith answered that was the director I have 46 years of railroad experience and I'm telling you it will not please keep these images and this comment in mind as you hear the remainder of the speakers we have worked hard to try to find some common ground with Go-Triangle over the last month and sadly have found none please vote no thank you now for Mr. Phillip Post Phillip Post 104 St. Andrews Place Durham County I strongly oppose the Romphen your proposal does not meet the four findings and is not in conjunction with the statute is it consistent with the existing land use plans no your justification for existing transportation plans but there's not a single plan in the city of Durham that proposes any industrial zoning west of interstate 40 the closest industrial zone land is four and a half miles away your own statements say that this zoning will deviate from existing patterns and it's a perfect example of leapfrog and non contiguous zoning which is prohibited by your ordinance is it compatible with existing land uses all the surrounding land uses are residential the largest county elementary school is 750 feet away industrial noise lights, use and danger are not compatible with existing homes your justification is based on surrounding development activity and change conditions the surrounding development activity is all residential and there are no change conditions of this location will it be substantial adverse impacts? yes there'll be noise 88% of the trees on this 24 acre site will be removed 100% of the wetlands will be filled in 70% of the stream buffers will be destroyed and the 20 foot buffer is completely inadequate and of course the additional proffer is for 8 foot tall pine trees but along their frontage they're going to clear cut 21 acres thousands of trees and they're going to replant about 90 pine trees is totally inadequate is the site of adequate size, shape and location absolutely not your own major transportation corridor will be 58% will be destroyed and for almost 750 feet of the frontage along interstate 40 will there be no transportation quarter buffer at all please deny this rezoning Stephanie Galloway I'm Stephanie Galloway 114 Baccalaureate Boulevard in Durham I'm the parent of both the current and future student at Creekside Elementary School you've heard from our experts, from senior citizens and from other Creekside parents you've learned that there will be noise at the site that is categorized as severe by federal standards those figures are based on a written noise report that is constantly changing and virtually indecipherable it is inadequate and needs to be done again you have learned that your planning department its criteria for a change of the comprehensive plan does not mention noise even once it concludes without explanation that this site is the appropriate size and shape for the project and there will be no substantial adverse impact on neighbors or the natural environment in the area and that it is consistent with your existing plans and compatible with existing development it is in fact none of these things it is an inappropriate use of the property for which go triangles seeking to rezone putting it here violates solid planning principles including your own regulations regarding the protection of valuable wetlands and prohibiting clear cutting trees along I-40 it violates your criteria for determining if rezoning should be granted and lastly common sense we are here because go triangle did not do its homework when it chose the site go triangle did not properly recognize and continues to not recognize the reality of who will be affected if the site were chosen a senior community a title one elementary school close to an african-american family and others having chose wrong it continued its error and now asks you to join in its path this is your decision not theirs you are our elected officials and we have put our trust in you we are counting on you to exercise your judgment tonight wisely if you vote yes tonight our lives will be permanently changed creek side elementary school will never be the same our wetlands will be permanently lost the health and well-being of our children and seniors will be severely impacted now and forever this is your decision yours I ask you to think on that not go triangle please vote no tonight welcome Mr. Galloway Mr. Galloway welcome sir you have two minutes my name is Gordon Galloway I'm a resident at 114 Baccalaureate Boulevard in Durham at a recent meeting with go triangle a concern related to the light rail crossings that relates to school bosses on Farrington road and backups occurring to the school bosses legal obligations to stop at rail crossings the senior planner for go triangle was unaware of this as an additional traffic concern unaware of the law that school bosses stop and they had failed to mitigate that now as significant as that concern may be that's not why I'm here tonight that's not my point go triangle engaged EPS Creekside Elementary indeed the school affiliated community at large in earnest this would have been a known variable yet at every turn we as a school based community have been excluded I'd go triangle in this board in front of me today reached out to this particular constituency those most affected by the romp I don't think we'd be here today in fact this board's own planning commission their vote betrayed this romp site as quite simply a poor location and a bad decision and make no mistake this is not your classic case of nimby public policy the romp site must not be located near any elementary school and should follow national precedent with respect to utilizing more industrial urban location we have a massive multi-billion dollar infrastructure plan here a project resting on a single bad idea and so here I stand sounding as if I'm anti-light rail I am not but I am painted in a corner we know the success of this project as it stands now hinges on this site in tonight's vote I say let's do this light rail thing but big enough where the footprint includes a site for a real romp also done right we are not asking you to quit on the idea we are asking you to wait to do it right to find a new romp site federal funding will come again we know how this works vote no tonight please Ms. Williford hang on one second before Ms. Williford speaks and then she'll be followed by Robert Slater and then I'd like to ask some other folks to please join them over here in this order Barbara D. Smith John Austin John Vaughn I'm sorry I'm not sure if I can read your handwriting Ellen Michelson Isaac Woods and Phyllis McLean if you all would make your way over here that would be great Ms. Williford thank you for being here and you have two minutes my name is Dottie Williford and I live in 550 yards from this proposed romp I have always been opposed to it I know it's not the only location possible being so close I've been notified many times I mean there are actually one two three four five different locations that have been considered for this building two of them are already zoned industrial or commercial and I just ask you please do not vote no do not put that building in our residential neighborhood close to our creekside elementary thank you Mr. Robert Schlatter thank you Mr. Schlatter we're glad you're here you have two minutes well thank you thanks for your patience and hearing everybody I live at 204 Galway Drive in Chapel Hill Durham County just by way of background I've been in the real estate business 30 years I've been involved with two companies of national scale one on the New York Stock Exchange and other in North Carolina Bell partners I teach real estate undergrads and MBAs at both Duke and Carolina so I have been spending 25 years coming before folks asking for zoning and entitlements so my at the outset I just would make clear this has got nothing to do with light rail per se I'm a developer I'm all for light rail certainly creates great wealth for those who own the sites near the stations but having said that this is just about whether this is a proper spot for this facility I think that's correct so I just make three points number one would be this proposal violates the fundamental principle of zoning which is you don't put in Congress uses together you don't put a residential in a residential area an industrial facility that's just zoning one on one so my office in Alexandria was near the similar plant for the Washington Metro and for eight years I heard the squeaking breaks all day long which was fine we went home at 5.30 at night put an industrial use in an industrial area you don't need a noise study to know the sound is it going to pair people value of their homes of course it is so people can put lipstick on a pig it's not going to pair people value about the decibels and all that some would say whipped cream on a turd but I would say that this it's just a bad it's just in Congress was zoning number two I would say if I came before you as a private developer I wouldn't have a chance with this proposal so why should they number three would be I think there may be exposure under the fifth amendment for an inverse taking depending on the noise here from Barbara D. Smith Ms. Smith welcome you have two minutes good evening Mr. Mayor and council members I am not against right light rail I am against putting the romp in the the place that that that go triangle has designated according to the website your website you have five goals that you're supposed to do two of them are being violated by all the different negative things that have already been brought out by all the other speakers the goal of maintaining a safe and secure community the goal of maintaining thriving and livable neighborhoods both of those goals are being violated by all the negative things that the romp will happen if it's built it is inappropriate to put an industrial complex in the middle of an extensive residential area is my understanding that the city council is to make decisions that accomplish the stated goals that they've already put in the website and protect Durham residents so please vote no on all four motions on item number 37 again the two goals that need to be maintained as that need to be addressed as maintaining a safe and secure community and having thriving and livable neighborhoods thank you welcome Mr. Austin you have two minutes hi I'm John Austin I live at 15 Wesley would drive about a half mile from the from the site yes transit's important in almost all cases any of the negative consequences any of the negative consequences caused to businesses universities or residents by the project are offset by the advantage of a station that they can take advantage of but in this case there are only negative consequences for our neighborhoods yes deadlines are important but the deadline for federal funding is not an excuse for go triangle to ignore issues raised by the community Duke Michael Goodman and others have finally had the courage to stand up and ask go triangle not to kill light rail but to do better and now is your opportunity to do the same I can't state my objections any better than planning board member Tom Miller did in his report please listen to your planning commission and follow your own statutes with regards to zoning changes thank you thank you Mr. Austin we're now here from John Von Aachen John Von Aachen I'm sorry if I got your name wrong sir I've been called worse thank you for your time Mr. Mayer as well as the staff I want to let people know right now my name is John Von Aachen 5203 Niagara Drive I'm in the Colt Barbara grouping no one here tonight is arguing the fact that we need the light rail it's the fact that go triangle has not disclosed everything up front to us they indicated there were five sites that they could have chosen and the reasons they gave didn't exactly seem to be forthcoming or they took their time to deliver it the site that was down in Charlotte South Bay is 14 acres why do they need 20 acres to build a site because they're putting a building on it why do we need a building there go back and reinvestigate the sites and get full disclosures as far as why they decided that they weren't suitable and then while you're looking at it things are constantly changing and right along the site there's a place over on sorry about that oh yeah here we go on Shannon Road they're basically taking that whole development knocking down seven buildings or seven businesses including a Volkswagen dealership and they're going to put their station there right behind it right on 501 there is a lot a lot adjacent to it that's vacant why not reinvestigate some other properties that are right along their rail site which make perfect sense but to turn around and take a property such as what they're looking at right now and rezone it for light rail or industrial is wrong there's plenty of commercial property out there that can be reinvestigated and make it happen I would like to see as far as why it should go forward but right now as far as I'm concerned go rail has not been forthcoming with the information that we need let alone that you need with the sound etc I ask you to vote no Thank you Mr. Van Aken Ellen Michelson Welcome Ms. Michelson you have two minutes Thank you I'm Ellen Michelson 4324 Trenton Road and I am very much in favor of anything that's green but not the romp where it's being proposed and I really encourage you to vote no all of the reasons have already been stated but I have personally visited the Charlotte romp and that was not with the group because they weren't inclusive of everyone and it was actually built on a dumping ground not on a family farm where is what we have I encourage you to vote against all four motions for building a romp placing it among like buildings and facilities such as warehouses not 75 yards from a retirement community or 400 yards from a school including we must have 10 neighborhoods within there I've lived within the proposed rezoning site for 30 years over 30 years and I am not in one of those neighborhoods I am in a green neighborhood where we're going to hear even more you've seen it all I can't repeat everything and I don't want to but I want to tell you that I have observed that intersection the Go Triangle people admitted to me that they have not looked between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. or 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. there are accidents every day with vehicular accidents the buses are empty there's nobody at the bus stops I'm not saying that the light rail is not necessary we are all good people but I also have a postcard here we've been talking about this since the 90's and this is the first postcard I got last month where Go Triangle was rescheduling a meeting for Monday November 19th the Monday before Thanksgiving and they were presenting a supplemental environment assessment that gave people about 10 or 11 days including a holiday to put their concerns in writing to you people so I hope you got the letters we sent but it is a pre-holiday season but this is not for Christmas this is because we oppose the light rail we want you to stop it thank you very much Mr. Isaac Woods they have given me the times they're next in the list Phyllis McLean my mother Ella Woods and my cousin Ella Day and Michelle so I'm going to speak Mr. Woods I've been on the City Council seven years we don't yield time no I'm not saying yield the time I'm summarizing into one what would normally take 15 minutes I'm going to try to do in two minutes that is great I apologize if I miscommunicate that if you do that you get the congressional medal of honor uh thank you Mr. Mayor thank you City Council members my name is Isaac Woods I reside at 5223 Evershow Church Road we are the descendants of Isaac Newton Jones a former slave we've been there all our life that's my mother, my sister the property has been taken as shell and my cousin Ella our property that a girl triangle has taken for this light rail maintenance facility belongs to African Americans as you can see they've already exercised intimate domain if you look in the emails I sent you in their environmental justice report the most hurtful thing we saw was there was no African Americans associated there's no shaded yellow at all in that report when I looked at that and my family looked at that they've taken our property way back in March of this year through intimate domain we've been at every meeting they knew we were African Americans why did they falsify the information to you to convince you to make a bad decision and present it to the government because if you're familiar with the Environment and Justice Act it's a protected class where you can't put rails highways and neighborhoods that has a majority population as I stated over half of the land they've taken to put intimate domain on the bill of light rail along by African Americans across the street all the way up to Creekside Elementary School which is another 15 acres that is still land on by African Americans that we reside there from our great grandfather that was the late Isaac Newton Jones from slavery for them to come in and do this false report and present to you to try to make you think that they were giving you good information the same information they gave you to reject that. Would you stand here and let a police officer give you false report and act on it? No, you would send it back and say look, you come before this council you bring us accurate, integrity information to act on and that's what you need to do or go trying to you need to send vote no for this rezoning and send it back and say when I give support information to this council it must be accurate and you should vote no tonight thank you for your time Excuse me for some order please I'm going to call these names and if you I believe that Mr. Woods was speaking for you just to make sure Ms. Ella R. Woods Ms. Ella Day Turrentine Are you all here and would like to speak? Thank you Okay Michelle Robertson Robertson Brian Sohair I think this is SOHER Mr. Sohair here Okay, I'm going to call a few more names and if you all would join Mr. Sohair over here please Brian Sohair Jenny Force Donna Koon Andrew Sorry I'm having trouble reading your handwriting Abamousa Bob Yao Tom Stark Dan Jensen If you all would please join us over here to the right in the order which I called your name is Brian Sohair, Jenny Force Donna Koon Andrew Abamousa Bob Yao Tom Stark and Dan Jensen Mr. Sohair welcome please give us your name and address and you have two minutes Thank you Mr. Mayor City Council members My name is Brian Sohair I live at One Coggins Mine Court which is basically 100 feet the other side of the creek side so I'm pretty familiar with the sound of I-40 at night and it's actually not such a bad thing it's a bit like the ocean but it doesn't happen intermittently and it doesn't shriek at high decibels I think the thing that worries my wife and I the most is the concept of the light industry so close to our property but also the fact that it's all night I wish I'd gotten any sort of mail or email or any notification before about a month ago from Go Triangle about this 100 feet the other side of creek side elementary are three or four different neighborhoods and as we've heard from a number of people a number of actions or lack of actions from Go Triangle that really presents a story of bad faith on the part of this large venture for an important thing like light rail, I'm a big fan of light rail I would love to ride light rail to do it everyday that's where I work but honestly this is all pain and no gain for our neighborhood it's a everything that people presented are legitimate concerns but there's not even a stop there for us to ride to work on go shopping with I'd have to drive in order to take advantage of this four foot berm I really loved that presentation that was great 20 foot setback trust me I've lived in a neighborhood for 8 years I know how quickly or not very quickly you know ornamental trees grow about 10 feet in about 8 years it doesn't stop noise seriously I want to go home and tell my children that I didn't stop light rail my representatives tell a corporate entity that we want to do it right I want to be able to tell them that democracy worked I want to be able to tell them that you looked at this as an issue for the people everybody in the city of Durham and voted on its merits not just on necessity due to poor planning vote no please thank you Jenny Force Jenny Force Yeah I have two minutes welcome Hi everyone my name is Jennie buenos I live at 4211 Taylor Hall place that's in the Trenton neighborhood you know I am not opposed to the light rail or mass transit but I have been working very hard to activate my neighborhood on next store setting texts emails my name may be familiar to some of you as well so just take a moment to stand here so you can see the whites of my eyes and here my opposition again that I oppose this location of the romp. It is too close to the elderly community, so many of which are here today, as well as the Creekside students, and as well as my family. I want to be able to sleep at night without hearing those wheel squeals. I want to be able to have the students at Creekside learn during a day. So I urge you to vote no, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Forrest. We'll now hear from Donna Kuhn. We'll now hear from Donna Kuhn. Ms. Kuhn, are you here? All right, then we will now hear from Andrew Abumusa. Obviously, I am not he, but he is... I'm sorry, you can't speak for him. We don't yield time. Okay. If Dr. Abumusa is here, he can feel free to sign up and speak. He did sign up to speak, but he got called. He is a neurosurgeon. Yeah, you've already spoken as well. Have you not? I have. You spoke very first, yeah, I'm sorry. We don't yield time, so thank you. Mr. Bob Yal, followed by Tom Stark, Dan Jensen. Yeah, those three are next. Welcome, Mr. Yal, please give us your name and address. Dr. Robert Yal, I live 5138 Niagara Drive in Cove, Arbor. I would just like to put my two cents and worth tonight to say that I agree with all of my compatriots that have explained to you very clearly what the problem is. I was born here in Durham almost 82 years ago and practiced OBGYN here in Durham for about 40 years and delivered babies in Duke, Watts, Lincoln and UNC and Durham Regional. So I've been around a long time. I know Durham's part of my history. I love it and lived six different places in Durham, myself not counting the house my mother and dad built from Greggsons Street in 1940. So when we finally decided to go to Cove, Arbor, two years ago, we started looking and it was just great for where we wanted to be and we heard absolutely nothing about any of what we've talked about tonight and it's just my feeling is that somewhere along the line this should have been brought out and explained to everyone involved. But we love our neighbors out there. We love Cove, Arbor and we do not think that the romp should be across the street from us. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Yell. Next we'll hear from Tom Stark. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, my name's Tom Stark. I'm here to represent the Oaks 3 in Cove, Arbor. I live at 105 Coway Drive and my office is at 5925 Farrington Road just down the street from this. We have a proposal in front of us tonight that is supported by a group of politically active folks because it has to do with light rail. That is in spite of the fact that the project evidence is serious environmental noise and compatibility concerns. It would never be approved but for the fact that is the cause celeb for folks who want to see light rail. It's not the fault of the opponents that go triangle, dismiss the other alternatives that were in commercial and industrial areas more suitable for this kind of facility. The proposal is fatally flawed because it involves a refusal here or you're being asked as members of the council to dismiss the ordinances that protect properties. The overlay district, the MTC buffer. We're gonna mow down a 100 foot buffer that we decided was important for highways and replace it with 20 feet around a facility that's clearly much noisier than the highway. It's not a proposal that makes logical sense. The environmental assessment was just amended 10 days ago. How does that fit with NEPA? How is that a legitimate consideration of the environmental alternatives? When there aren't alternatives offered and the assessment was just updated. How do we do an approval that is in violation of the considerations that a council has to look at in order to pass a rezoning? And then changes the ordinance just for this site. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Dan Jensen and Mr. Jensen, before you get started, excuse me one minute, I'm gonna call the final group of speakers if you will join Mr. Jensen over here to the right. John Williford, Jennifer Hernandez, Kelly Riley, Peter Sanzalian, Jay Williams, I think it's a spreezy. Sorry if I've got that wrong. And let me also ask now at this time, is there anyone else who would like to speak in opposition to the romp tonight? Is there anyone else who would like to be heard in opposition to the romp at this public hearing, this rezoning? Anyone else in opposition to the rezoning? Okay, so I believe these are our last speakers in opposition. And again, I've gotten here, Mr. Dan Jensen, followed by Mr. John Williford, Jennifer Hernandez, Kelly Riley, Peter Sanzalian, and Jay Williams, spreezy. Spranzy, sorry, thank you. Okay, Mr. Jensen, welcome. We're glad to have you and you have two minutes. Thank you. My name's Dan Jensen. I'm at 106 Nottingham Drive. I'm about a half a mile from the proposed maintenance facility. I really don't know a whole lot about what is happening. I have not been informed learning a lot tonight. I've written down a few observations, but first town council and Mr. Mayor, I applaud you. I applaud all that you've done, all of those before you have done, and I'll be all the way becoming after you have done to really revitalize, revitalize this area. It's exciting, and I hope we continue to see that, but this is a maintenance facility that we're talking about, and it's in the wrong area. If you look at the people that are speaking tonight, opponents versus opponents, opponents outnumber proponents in speaking about two and a half to one. If you look at the room with the red, variation of red, you can see that the opponents there are also outnumbering the proponents. The opponents have shown up with the experts, with the data to really put it before you why this facility is wrong. You're disrupting a residential area. Who are the people that are talking to you? Senior citizens and mothers representing their children. That's a pretty good demographic. And now to learn how that land was acquired? Oh my gosh, how does that get by you? There's other areas that we can, that this facility, facility, we're not opposing. I have not heard one opponent oppose light rail. They're opposing a facility. The documents are coming from folks go triangle. What's their interest? Oh, they're going to do it. They're going to build it. Sure, they're going to have all the data. Please vote no. Thank you, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Williford. Mr. Williford, welcome. You have two minutes. Good evening. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I'll keep this very brief. My name is John Williford. I live at 4716 Carmen Lane Durham. That's impressed that case place. I'm the vice president of our Homeowners Association. I can confirm to you that over the last two years that I've sat there, not received nor has any member of our board or our administrator of our board, one single notice from go triangle when they were considering this proposal. When we look at this, our neighborhood is 101 homes in it. If we conservatively estimate that we're at $36 million worth of property value, what portion of that just in my neighborhood that's going to be here is going to be impacted by this facility? Maybe the remediation efforts are okay. Maybe they're not, but we do not have an actual financial assessment to make that determination. If just our labor hood's going to lose 10% of its value, that means that those citizens, those 101 families are going to be bearing the burden of $3.6 million worth of losses as a result of this. So when you look through here, look at us, look at the citizens of Colt Harbor and the other neighborhoods around and ask how can we make that assessment of whether these remediation efforts are correct or not without the whole picture to see how everyone's going to be impacted as a result of this. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Jennifer Hernandez. Welcome, Mr. Hernandez. You have two minutes. Hi, Jennifer Hernandez, 4316 Taylor Hall Place. That's in the Trenton community as well. I think you've heard a lot of the points already about the inconsistency of rezoning this land given the context. But I think one of the things that I wanted to underscore is the communication from Go Triangle and the evaluation of alternative locations. And I know there were five. I heard some of the backstories at a previous meeting. One of the locations got utilized for car dealership instead. One location we were told got a lot of letters written in from the children at the Jewish Center and that's why it was removed from the list. And that explanation got me thinking, well, geez, if there's a elementary school, did they not let that elementary school know because they didn't want to hold one of the flood of children's letters coming in to dissuade them from using this site? And hearing a lot of the stories tonight that I had not previously heard from the Creekside parents really drives that home. And I looked through their website recently, saw a lot of their publicly listed events, some of which I attended because I happened to drive by the intersection frequently and don't have children and was able to just attend on a weeknight. But I also received a letter from them earlier this month and got to see firsthand how disingenuous that communication could be. And what I got, and I have a picture of if you would like, was a letter stating three open houses to discuss the recently released supplemental environment assessment, which is hundreds if not thousands of pages long, extremely technical. Thank you to the community members who offered their expertise to help us lay citizens decipher the information in there. But the letter was postmarked after two of those three dates had occurred. And by the way, the third one was two days later, i.e. I didn't open it before that date occurred. I looked on their website and found out there was a later one too late. Thank you, Ms. Hernandez. We'll now hear from Kelly Riley. Welcome, Ms. Riley. Hi, my name is Ms. Riley and I live on 4712 Carman Lane. Mr. Baker, I was really excited to see you here tonight. I attended your Wake Forest alumni dinner that you hosted where our topic of conversation was character and leadership. I believe the character and leadership is demonstrated when decisions are made that concern all citizens. That's why reiterating what the lady just said that I was very concerned to hear that the romp location that was considered on Cornwallis Road was next to a private school. And when the parents protested that location, it was changed. And now that the romp location is next to a public school, I would like to know why the public school students are not given the same concern. A lady earlier tonight said that today's issue is about race, agreed. More students attend Creekside Elementary of Color than the students who attend the private school. So I'd like all students at Creekside to be given the same concern as the students at the private school. While we're on the topic of race, I'm so glad that Mr. Woods was here tonight to represent his family. When I read the article in Indie Week this week, I thought about another romp location that was discarded because it was an historical site. I couldn't believe that a family that has owned their lands since slavery is not considered an historical site. Perhaps race has something to do with that. My second concern is property values. I read the eight page report by GoTriangle to mitigate concerns, property values are not mentioned. Let's be clear, we only have a romp, no station. There are actually neighbors in the surrounding neighborhoods who still believe that the romp includes a station. Well, that could attract buyers. A romp in itself would not draw buyers, it would detract them. And that causes crippling financial situations for my family and many others. I do ask that you consider, just because you do not live in our neighborhood, if you do live in a residential neighborhood, would you want it to be turned into an industrial one with no station nearby, and no benefits when you want to sell your home? Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Riley. Peter Tinsolian. Honorable Mayor Schull, council members, at great effort, I will try to keep this brief. I'm Peter Tinsolian, a concerned citizen that lives on Stockton Way. And as you consider your vote, please ask yourself, how can we call progress when we rezone a residential community in equilibrium? With a Title I school in very close proximity, a retirement community across the way, a cemetery nearby, and people of faith worshiping on Sunday morning the same Creekside Elementary School. Rejecting the mismanagement by go triangle, not to find a more suitable industrial location should not be conflated with rejection of the light rail. Light rail could be very positive for Durham with an appropriately located romp in an industrial, not residential community. Please vote no. Thank you. Thank you. I will hear now from Jay William. Spransy. Spransy. Yes, thank you, Honorable Mayor Schull and councilors. My name's William Spransy. I live at 4707 Marina Place, which is less than a half mile away from the proposed site of the rezoning. I'm a real estate developer and investor, as well as a adjunct faculty at the UNC Kenan Flagler Business School. Preface this by saying I'm not against the light rail as many of my compatriots who are opposing this rezoning are as well. We've heard a litany of arguments both for and against and while go triangle claims to have engaged the community about this process, first off, they didn't meet the required zoning signage requirements prescribed in the UDO. Additionally, only in the last eight weeks have they released the impacts of the noise study and some questions suitability and accuracy of the report. Not enough time has been given to study the level of noise and the impact on residents, students and those surrounding areas. The economic impact to those within the noise impacts will also be immediate and severe. The rezoning creates a lottery system that has designated our surrounding neighborhoods as the loser, burdened to pay the loss of property value without the benefits of the light rail winners that included many of the proponents who spoke earlier tonight, particularly those that live close to stops. I request that you vote no or if you must vote yes, add additional language to the rezoning to require either a full-time stop at this location or some economic benefit to those impacts. I think it's fair to do a fiscal analysis to understand the impact of this station now that the zoning, now that the noise study has been completed. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. I have made some rough calculations. First of all, before I give them to you though, I just wanna thank everybody who's spoken so far. We've had a great discussion, both pro and con. I really appreciate all the hard work that everyone has done and the information that you have brought, the seriousness which you've taken the topic and the civility which you have exhibited. So I wanna thank everybody for that. I did some rough calculations, Madam Clerk and I believe that there were 52 speakers in opposition, 18 in favor. Is that about what you have, Madam Clerk? Okay. Just wanna do a little time calculation here. Mayor, I have 18 as well. Thank you very much. All right. So then doing a little bit of quick math, let's just say that the proponents would have 68 minutes if you chose to take it all. In the, to comply with our rule that everyone on both sides of a every zoning case gets an equal amount of time, pro and con. And as I said, of course, you don't have to take it. I'm gonna first ask our staff members from Go Triangle if they would like to now come and add any additional comments that you may have now that you have heard both the opponents and the proponents, can you come down? I wanna say to respect your time and everyone's time, we'll answer questions and we're ready to do that, but we don't need to take time right now. Okay, all right. Let me just hear then, are there any other proponents before we get into the questions that we'd like to speak? Any other proponents? Okay, is there anyone else? Is there anyone else that would like to be heard in this public hearing? Is there anyone in this room, either pro or con, who would like to be heard in this public hearing? He would like to be heard. All right, thank you. Please come down here. And while she comes, I'm gonna give one last chance. Is there anyone pro or con who would like to be heard before we go into our city council questions and comments? Is there anyone else? Last call, okay. Mr. Savara, you would like to be heard. Would you please make your way over to the podium as well? Did I hear it, see another person? I know he's, let me explain the rules again. Every, both the proponents and the opponents get equal time. Okay, that's the rule. I gave everyone two minutes and then the leftover time can be used by any proponent. Okay, so the fact that he's already spoke, he can speak again. Okay, just to be clear about how it works. Okay, thank you very much. Would you, first of all, after you've spoken, if you wouldn't mind, if you go over that table right there and fill out a yellow card would be great. And can you give me your name and address and you have two minutes? Yes, I'm Tamara Finn and I live at 412 Nottingham Drive, about two streets away from the romp. I'm not gonna repeat what everyone has said, dressed in red. This was a very, very hard outfit to choose with this, so I put a lot of effort into it to show my taste for this decision. Hopefully it's going to be a no. I just wanna say a couple things in response to somebody's comments about things that we heard at the last meeting. A gentleman on the go, triangle committee, said that it was proposed to be in front of the synagogue but since they thought it was an eyesore, it got turned down. On top of all the other things that we're all talking about of all the reasons it shouldn't be there, eyesore is definitely one of them that I feel and I think we should get as much consideration as the people at the synagogue are getting. I have read in a couple different articles as well that there'll be no painting at this facility as well as something else that's supposed to not happen at this facility. I'm wondering where the painting will happen and if there's a facility set up for the painting, then why can't the whole romp be put where the painting will be done? So I'm not sure what the other part of the painting is, I can't recall right now, but if there's definitely something where the painting is gonna be done, then let's just move the whole romp to that area as well. I'm at the intersection all the time of the homes that have been boarded up and it makes me very sad and just to hear the family story tonight brought tears to my eyes and I think it's going to be a very, very sad decision for so many reasons, the children, the families, the schools, the arbor, having elderly parents, I can't imagine that they would be living there being subjective to this and thinking they spent their whole lives in the retirement funds to spend money on a house that's gonna cause them grief with sounds and property values and things like that. So that's all I have to say. I just hope it's a big fat no. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Finn. Mr. Svar. The Jim Svar. Again, I just wanted to make a couple of other comments about the site. Many of the speakers who are imposed referred to this site as being in the middle of an established residential area. It is beside a residential area. Beside, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, Ms. Svar. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, I think we have had no, every single speaker has been treated with respect and we're gonna maintain that the rest of the night. And I'm totally expecting that and I think everybody else in this room is expecting that too. You agree with someone or you don't agree with them? I expect every speaker to be treated with absolute respect. Thank you, Ms. Svar. Okay, well, I mean, it's, the site chosen is beside Culpe Harbor Neighborhood. When looking at the area, I was surprised, but noted that it faces away from Farrington Road. And there are a few houses that are close directly across from the site that we are told by GoTriangle could have some moderate impact, but over 100 units can extend beyond and further back. There is only one house that faces the site along its full distance. We are hearing assumptions about noise and negative impact and I hope that GoTriangle, there will be questions to them to address that more fully. But the school is not right beside the site. It is a third of a mile by the crow fries to the structure, but the other part of the romp is behind that. So I think we've made assumptions about the level of the impact and the proximity and how this interferes with in the middle of an established neighborhood. And that just does not match the characteristics. Thank you. Thank you. Any other speakers? Mr. Hales? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We appreciate fairness on equal time for both sides. I'm gonna do about one more minute on the comments from our CAN meeting with our 27 participating member organizations and many hundred Durham citizens involved. This specific site is designated on the adopted future land use map of Durham's comprehensive plan for commercial and office uses, not residential. This area has also seen a number of higher density development and rezoning in recent years as water and sewer services have been extended into the area. A stated opposition to this request has been tied and at the Plain Commission, it was stated as this as not my backyard concerns. I would note that the benefits of a rail transit project are clearly city wide. I would also note that NIMBY driven decisions oftentimes have the negative result of dumping controversial projects and locations where local people are not as organized and have their own voice in the rezoning process. We certainly don't want to see that done here. I would also point out this project would have to meet and exceed all local and state environmental requirements in areas of stormwater, tree protection and other issues. Would point out if this project is rezoned, the restrictions on the proposal will not allow any other use of the site, not residential, not commercial, not industrial, without a new full rezoning request and process. And I would also note that staff recommendation is in favor of the request, thanks. Thank you. All right, I believe that is our last speaker. And now I'm going to ask my city council colleagues if they have any questions at this time. Mr. Mayor. Council member Reese. Is this a time for us to leave the public hearing open and ask questions. Public hearing is remaining open. Okay. Thank you for that question. I have some questions for GoTriangle staff, if they're amenable. GoTriangle staff, if you all could please come down to the podium up here to my right. I think both John and Dave, that would be good. Thank you. How's it going gentlemen? I have a question about the memo that you passed out tonight to Charters. What is that supposed to mean to me? So what we've heard in the various community meetings that staff has attended and has expressed with great concern this evening, of course, is this 136 DB A, this noise number and representing that that's going to be the noise from the wheel squeal when the light rail vehicles come off the main line of the track and curve to go into the maintenance facility. So what we've- Can I interrupt you for a second? Pardon me. Can I interrupt you for one second? Sure. That is what your report said, right? That's the 130 6 DB is in the noise vibration report. What that number is, is not an instantaneous noise from the wheels that go around the curve. It's over the duration of a particular noise that's prescripted by the Federal Transit Administration for all noise and vibration analyses. So it's an accumulation of if a noise of the light rail vehicle going around the curve to go into the maintenance building takes say 10 seconds to get through the curve. The 130 6 DB number is the addition of or the accumulation of that noise energy over that 10 seconds boiled down to a one second noise. The FTA guidelines for the noise analysis also require an instantaneous noise of 100 decibels to be part of the standard noise analysis. And the FTA guidelines are meant for all across the United States to have a level playing field for all of the analysis of all of the light rail transit projects. So FTA has guidelines that every analysis has to use those numbers absent of the specific radius of the curves or the mitigation that the agency will do to calm the wheel squeal. The purpose of the handout this evening was for equivalent curves on the Norfolk light rail system and equivalent speeds of the vehicle five to 10 miles an hour going around the curves. What was in that report are two sets of noise readings. One of the mitigation items that we've talked about in the analysis is to lubricate the rails. So you'll see some noise numbers that are attributed when the rail is lubricated. And those are on reference to the page in the report. So on the second page of the report, you'll see a list of a couple locations in Norfolk on the light rail system there. And it identifies whether the track was lubricated. And then the next page, there's a couple that are not lubricated. What's important, what we're trying to represent is the maximum value for DBA is around 80 or so if it's not lubricated. And around 70 if it is lubricated. That is in comparison to what the FTA conservatively requires in our noise analysis to use a noise level of 100 for an instantaneous noise. So what we're trying to represent is the FTA analysis that everyone in the country, all systems are required to follow is conservative and rightly so because there are very many variables. But when you start looking at the specifics of the radius of the curve and the type of mitigation that will occur to calm the wheel squeal, the amount of noise is much less than the analysis requires for an even playing field. So I apologize for the complexity or inconsistent information that was just shared with you but I'm happy to answer any other questions. But that was the purpose was to show we will be lubricating the rails, the curvature on the rails at the main facility are of the same radius as these examples from Norfolk. Similar vehicle, similar speed of the vehicle. And so we were trying to compare apples to apples and share with council and the public that the actual in place noise is gonna be much less than what the FTA requires for the analysis. That's actually really helpful, I appreciate that. Can you talk changing gears slightly? Can you talk a little bit about the recent revisions to table six dash three from the October 2018 document, the proposed refinements to the noise and vibration technical report. This is a document that was provided to us by some of the folks that live, I believe in the Culver Arbor and one of the folks who spoke in opposition to the rezoning showed us some revisions that were made to the document. You walk us through what that's about, what that shows, whether or not there is a significant impact to homes even on the edge of Culver Arbor. Yes, certainly. So on that table six dash three, and we certainly apologize for the honest mistake, it was not something meant to represent any of the information, of course. What you'll see on table 6.3 are columns that are labeled M-O-D, which is moderate or S-E-V, which is severe at the top in the blue color. What that pertains to is, for the FTA's guidelines, they have thresholds of noise that come out of the analysis. And if the threshold is greater than a certain number, it falls into a moderate category. If it's even a higher noise level, it falls into a severe category. And the reason that's important is per the FTA guidelines, of course, all of this is using public funds. So the FTA is trying to make sure that the noise mitigation is cost-effective and does the job that it's supposed to do. So per the FTA guidelines, anything that falls into the severe impact category must be mitigated, must be addressed, whether it's a retrofit of the actual rail facility or the houses are retrofitted with better noise insulating windows or treatments on the house itself, as an example, or including berms or vegetated buffers, other elements to block the noise. If it's a moderate impact, the FTA does not require the project sponsor to mitigate those as a strict requirement. What go-triangles in the process of doing because we have numerous moderate impacts all across the 18-mile project, not just adjacent to the ROMP, all the way from Chapel Hill, all the way down Alston Avenue in Durham. So what go-triangle is doing is working on a policy to identify based on the numerous variables that are involved, whether it's just into the moderate range or almost close to the severe range as to what we need to spend public money on to mitigate. And so there's a lot of different variables that we'll be putting together. We have a policy going in place right now that we're working on. So that's just, so what we're showing in the table here, the first, the upper line, the upper row that the number was changed from 2.2 to 4.7. The 2.2 and 4.7 were transposed by the consultant by just by a typographical error. The top row there, those are the houses, the Culp-Arbor houses directly across Farrington Road from the site. Can I just interrupt you for one second? Yes. So what you're telling us is there's the road numbers along the top that's Culp Hill Drive to Ephesus Church Road. Correct. Those three boxes increase FTI criteria moderate and severe. No, they stayed moderate. So if you look at the third column from the right, yeah, okay. It says 4.8 would kick it into a severe category. 4.7 is lower than that number, so it stays in the moderate range. But the number's 4.0 now on the revised version. Now on the second row, so I'm looking at the top row that... So the new numbers on the version I have in the increased column are 4.7 on the top row. Top row 4.7, correct. 1.6 moderate, 4.0 severe. It's on the second row. So the corrections that we have from our consultant are the top row, the 2.2 changes to 4.7, which is close, but it's... This is what I'm saying is in some cases if the moderate is close to the severe, we have to pay more attention to mitigating that. So what you're telling me is that the document we were provided by the opponents doesn't reflect that. So what you're saying is the only thing that changed is the increased column, right? The top number and the bottom number were flipped. Is that correct? To further clarify, and I have a marked up copy here, I'm happy to share with you as I look at it. The 2.2 and 4.7 were flipped, correct. The second row, the 1.9 became 1.6, and then the 4.8 became 4.0, but that's on the second row of numbers, not the top row of numbers. So the second row in the moderate and severe column became identical to the top row? No, this is the second row for the moderate and severe instead of 1.9, it's 1.6. So the top row right in the initial report was 2.2, 1.9, 4.8. The only number that changes in the top row is from 2.2 to 4.7. Okay, okay. That's, again, that's not what's in the document we have here, I don't know where, the ponies, okay. Yeah, I marked mine up from the errata sheet that we received from the consultant, and we're happy to share that if there's any other questions. So essentially, we're still in the moderate range, we don't have any severe, but this is an example of, in both of those cases, in one case, we're very close to falling into the severe, and in the other case, we're well below the severe, and that's what the moderate impact work that we're gonna do to address those going forward. And so those are the text commitments you've made during the planning process, the berm, the buffer, the setback, all that stuff. Okay, one more, and then I'm sure some of my colleagues wanna get in on this as well, and then wanna hog all the time. But can you, if I'm not mistaken, the site selection process for the ROMP was pretty lengthy and included approvals on behalf of a number of different elected boards and appointed boards here in Durham, I believe Orange County as well. I think in 2015, October 2015, the city council approved what's referred to the NEPA alternative, which included this site for the ROMP, the Metropolitan Planning Organization for this, for the Triangle, also approved that, I think about a month later. Can you spend just a couple of minutes because it has become, and it was raised by a number of the opponents. Can you talk about the siting of the ROMP at this location, why it was determined to be the best of the five alternatives? Actually, I believe there were something in the neighborhood of 19 sites that were originally considered would've whittled down to five primary alternatives. And I know that as former council member, Diane Cattati mentioned, she was part of a group that went around and looked at all these sites and tried to help figure this out. So could you walk us through why this site was ultimately selected? That would be great. Absolutely. There are a number of criteria that, and this is documented in the draft environmental impact statement that was prepared in 2015 for the project, and the draft environmental impact statement, in addition to, and I'm looking at starting on page eight dash 16 in chapter eight, in addition to the actual text of the draft environmental impact statement, there were numerous appendices to that document back in 2015. One of the appendices was a noise and vibration report. So the information on noise and vibration was not just new for this supplemental environmental assessment that was published in at the end of October. The supplemental environmental assessment that was published at the end of October, the purpose of that document was to take a study of any changes to the impact on the environment after the 2016 record of decision that we received from the Federal Transit Administration. So starting in 2017, this is after the project included the three quarters of a mile to NC Central down Alston Avenue. After that, amended record of decision was approved by the Federal Transit Administration. The rules, so to speak, are any changes to the project, example, shifting the alignment, considering the addition of a Blackwell-Mangham Street Station, any changes to the project after that record of decision, a new environmental checklist is shared with the FTA to explain to them what the changes are. And the FTA says, based on the volume of the changes, whether go trying on needs to prepare another supplemental environmental assessment, which is what was published at the end of October. So that document includes a refresh of the noise and vibration report that was in the appendices from 2015 based on those changes. So to answer the question about the different ROM sites. So I'm quoting from the initial DEIS from 2015. And it notes that the Farrington Road site is the most desirable from a construction and operation standpoint. It's a 25-acre site, approximately, the largest site of the alternatives that were considered. It's located on a long straight section of track, which accommodates crossovers and access to the yard. So, and I'll talk, if it's permissible by council, I can go through each of the other four alternatives and let you know why those were not selected if that would be helpful. You can do it riskally, that'd be helpful. Okay, so one of the other alternatives for the ROM site was actually just south of this site and on the Curtis Booker property, that's area there is a historic property, and the FTA requires if there's a reasonable and feasible alternative to not damage or disrupt the historical site. So that site was discarded. Can you just stop for a moment? What made it a historical site? It's designated because of the importance of the farm that was there and the buildings that are on that site just from the historical significance. It's been designated as a historic district. Been designated by whom? By national register. That's what I'm looking for, thanks. Okay, sorry. So that was one of the five that was eliminated. The next one was near Patterson Place and it's actually at the site of the new University Ford Kia dealership that's under construction right now. That site was, the ROM would take up all of that site where the University Ford is being built now. That site was only feasible for going over New Hope Creek near 15501. In the DEIS we evaluated three separate alignments, one of which went straight due north across New Hope Creek and then the other two deviated up closer to 15501. And it was chosen by the FTA, the least environmentally disruptive was the alignment closer to 15501. That alignment goes right through the site where the ROM foot had been. So that takes care of that site. The next one has been mentioned by the audience is near the old Pepsi plant which is now a self-storage facility by Western Bypass. That site had a number of logistical issues. The problem is as if you may, if those that are familiar with that site as you go north on Western Bypass heading towards Duke Forest and Cornwallis, the road drops off pretty steeply down to Cornwallis. That's where we have an aerial structure going over Cornwallis and such. So the ROM site there has been talked about the access off of the main line of the track to get to the ROM facility. You would have had excessive number of tracks that were up in the air to connect to this aerial structure. And that in conjunction with part of the site had a deeded property that was part of the proffer for the self-storage building that would have taken a chunk out of the middle of the site. So logistically for the rail operations to work, there were many difficulties in accessing the main line. So that was the third of the five that got thrown out. Lastly, there was a site, the last site was near the Brentaer Chemical Facility off of Pettigrew Strait east of Alston Avenue. And there are a number of problems with that site, specifically, obviously it's a chemical plant and there are a lot of hazardous materials on the site. There's a railroad spur that comes off of the main line of North Carolina Railroad that would have been disrupted and that business presently employs more staff than the maintenance facility would have employed. So being sensitive to creating jobs and not displacing jobs, that site dropped out. Is it the three big questions I had after that? Thank you very much, Council Member. Thank you. Other Council Members with questions at this point? Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening to everyone. Thank you for your patience tonight and for the decorum and the high level of discourse that occurred here tonight. Mr. Chairman, I wanna talk about the reputation of GoTriangle throughout this process. There's a narrative that's been proliferating in our city from a number of different constituencies and groups that suggests that GoTriangle at some times it's not been forthcoming, even unresponsive at times to queries. Different from business holders downtown, a letter from a DPAC came out today suggesting that there was some unresponsiveness on the part of GoTriangle. So I want to speak directly to this council and this city dealing with an honest broker in this process. I think that the voices of the people who live on Farrington Road and from Culp Arbor are just as important as the booming institutional voice of Duke, just as important as the voices of wealthy landowners downtown. And for each of those constituents' concerns, we're doing a lot of genuflecting and doing a lot of negotiating to keep them happy and to work out the situations there. So I guess my first question, this'll be one of two, assuming that noise is a problem or will be a problem and assuming that we vote to rezone tonight. Are the mitigation strategies that are being recommended by GoTriangle are being suggested or are proffered by GoTriangle? Are they the most aggressive mitigation strategies available? Are they the least expensive? In other words, are you suggesting the utmost that can be done to mitigate noise insofar as there are legitimate concerns at that property? Where do they fall if you had to tear the response? That's a good question. We certainly try to do things all across the whole 18 miles of the project to respect and be good stewards of the public's money. So we're trying to address any impact that's brought up by the community, by the universities, by the hospitals, in a cost-effective manner, and address the comment or impact as best we can. There's always a limit to what can be done. But at the ROMP site, we've proffered and talked about, it was one of the young women that had a comment about the car body and paint shop issue. In many, many light rail projects with the maintenance facilities, if there is an accident with the vehicle, then they have a paint shop and a body shop right on site to repair the vehicle. In respect of the community's concerns, we've told the design team, no, we will not have a paint shop in that building. We will not do car body work, which will be noisy in that building. We will take it off-site to where our bus operations are or another vendor, but we've made it clear to our design team that that will not be included as part of the building on this site. We've included, as I mentioned a little bit on the address the wheel squeal. The wheels and the rails that cause the noise will be lubricated with special devices along the curvature of the rail. The light rail vehicles will be specified with what's called resilient wheels, and they're specifically to cut down on noise from wheel squeal going around curves. Got it. It feels a spin for just a second, because, and I appreciate the wonkiness, but let me just ask more of a conceptual question. Are we being as aggressive in responding to the concerns of the folk who live in Culp Harbor and along Farrington Road, as we are with Duke and Folk downtown? Because those fixes may potentially cost a great deal of money to keep it on its current path. Are we being as aggressive in addressing those concerns for these folk as we are with those other two major constituents? I believe we are. Yes, sir. My second question is, I'm heartened by the great deal of concern about African Americans in that area, and I certainly hope this concern will go beyond just this issue. There are any number of crusades that one can get involved in the city, so I appreciate the concern. I actually spoke with Mr. Woods as well. There was a direct, and I come from a community that has some familiarity with negative impacts on projects that have been pushed through in the name of progress, so I'm highly sensitive to that. A specific charge was made that eminent domain was used in a way that grabbed black folk's property, and that's dangling out there. Would you address that specifically? I think one of the hardest things to do on a project like this is to have to recommend to the GoTriangles Board of Trustees to use eminent domain to get property that's needed for the project. And in this case, after the good faith efforts of offering the fair market value for the property, it was clear that several property owners at the romp sites were not satisfied with that offer, and we were then forced to go into eminent domain to be able to move forward with the assemblage of the property and the rezoning request for the facility. Did any white people get their property taken? Yes. And then that starts a process through which we communicate their rights to, in this case, stay on the property, lease back the property from us. Everyone got that communicated through August 2019. There's only one property owner who's chosen to do that. Others have not chosen and for whatever reason. And then after a certain period of time of either not, well, not communicating that they're going to lease it back or telling us that they are not going to lease it back, then we have to ask them to vacate the property and give them notice about that. And so that's the process that this has gone through. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have other questions, but I'll yield in the interest of time to my colleagues. Thank you. Council members, questions. This is your opportunity. Council Member Caballero. Yeah, throughout the night, we have a big turnout here of Creekside parents. And based on what I'm hearing is that the initial decision was made in 2015 at that time where their communications made with Creekside and with whom? So I don't unfortunately know the answer to that question. I might turn to some of my other staff here who might be able to answer how we communicated through to Creekside. So let me get Jeff Green here, our senior planner to answer this question. Jeff Green, senior planner, co-triangle. We did communicate with Durham Public Schools. They were included on our notification during various parts of the project. There were at least I believe about a dozen letters sent to the schools, not to Creekside, but to Durham Public Schools Administrative Office. In addition, we did reach out to the Deputy Superintendent for operations back in 2015 about the project. Thank you. Council Member Alston. Jeff, you may want to stay. Are there other romp facilities in other cities that are located in close proximity to schools that you're aware of? I can't really, I unfortunately can't really speak to that. We have taken a look at that recently and just looking at the Charlotte romp, sort of the nearest example, there's a middle school that's about 4,400 feet away. There's Collinswood Language Academy that's about 3,800 feet away. Dillworth Elementary School is about 3,300 feet away and the playground at Marie G. Davis Middle School is only about 1,300 feet away, which is roughly the distance that Creekside Elementary is from the Farrington Roadside. Thank you. Council Member Rees. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This may be a question for our staff and not go triangle, is that still okay? Mr. Mayor. Absolutely, yes it is. Yes, questions for our staff, or go triangle staff is all a fair game. Thank you. Awesome. I've heard a bunch of folks talk about our noise ordinance. Ken, could I get someone to talk to me about how that would work if this facility, if this rezoning were to be approved, the facility were to be built? I'm gonna call on the city attorney to answer that question. Council Member Rees, I do have a copy of the noise ordinance. And let me be clear, I have been involved in these conversations in terms of what's coming down, so I haven't read any reports or haven't heard any specifics about noises that would be emanating from the property. But I do wanna be clear that the noise ordinance, as it's currently written, does speak to noises that go off the property. So it's not so much what the noise generates in and of itself on the property, but it is measured from off the property. And there are some standards that are in the, particularly the decibel reading standard. There's two basic standards, the unreasonably loud and disturbing standard, which is a product of a North Carolina state law. And then there's the more objective decibel reading standards as well. So those are here. I have not had a conversation with Go Triangle, so I don't know if there are any federal laws that may preempt state statute or city ordinances. But there are specific noise ordinance requirements as it relates to the decibel readings and that would be measured off the property. And there's a time limit as well from, I think from 7 a.m. to, well, the noise level changes between whether it's a nighttime noise or a daytime noise. But there's no exemption for the light rail facility in our noise ordinance, correct? Not one that exists today now. And certainly no plans to create one as far as I know. So I guess, okay, that's actually, that was a good answer to my question, thank you. Council members, more questions. Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to go back to the noise question briefly because that is the primary concern that we've heard from opponents. And we've heard the 136 decibel number. As I understand from what you all said, that number is an aggregation created by the, that that's aggregated as an aggregated total of a much lower amount of noise emanating over a longer period of time. Correct. So what level of noise would you, like what is the noisiest you would anticipate this facility actually being? I think a good example of the noisiest would be the wheel squeal. And we're talking about as an example from the Norfolk light rail report that I shared, it's around 70 decibels. Could you give me an example of something else that's about 70 decibels? Sure, 70 decibels would be, actually more than 70 would be a lawn mower, a city bus. So that wheel squeal is less than those examples. And that's at the site, like at the train, not like at what distance? Sure, that's typically measured 50 feet away from the generator of the noise as a consistent. In the environmental document in the noise and vibration report, there's actually a table, a little, I call it a thermometer that shows what the transit noise would be compared to common noises that you might hear on air conditioner. So the light rail noises around the curves is less than an air conditioner, less than a lawn mower, certainly less than a bus at 50 feet away. Okay. And so given that the site is next to the highway, is that part of the reason that the overall noise didn't reach severe impact in most, like for most of the area nearby? Is that considered when calculating the level of noise? Correct, what's called the ambient noise level is all of the background noise. And so the traffic, as many of the speakers noted, the traffic on I-40 and even on Farrington Road generates a certain level of noise. And that's taken into account on how much additional noise might be generated through wheel squeal. Okay, thank you. I just wanna make sure that we're all perfectly clear that 136 decibels of noise when trains go around, the tracks is not going to be coming from this facility. Correct. Thank you. Thank you. Are there questions? Councilor Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This perhaps is for some of the opponents or I don't know if there's a lead spokesperson, but some, a number of the emails we received asked for the possibility of a delay to hear from other residents. I'm wondering what, if that were to happen, I'd say it's gonna happen, but if that were to happen, what are we missing? What would need to happen in that interim period? What do we need to hear? I don't know if there's a, not that we'll let once, but if there's a single spokesperson, those who call for a delay. Ruth Ann, please do. Ruth, you're the deal. You got this, Ruth. I've been working with the group, primarily working with the group that's been negotiating with John and his crowd for the last four weeks. So I'm just gonna step up and take that question. I think that what we would need to have for an extended period of time would be two things. And if I'm missing something, one of our group tell me I don't think well on my feet. The first thing we would need is a new and valid noise study. We're working on, we're not just panicking in thin air, we're working from their numbers. The numbers Charlie on that chart that you were asking about were from Jeff Green, a 4.0 number, not the 4.0 that was from Jeff Green. So we want a different noise study. We want to have a neutral expert look at it. We want a neutral company to conduct it. And then we want to be satisfied that we're not putting our spouses and ourselves and schoolchildren at risk. It seems unconscionable to me to make this decision based on information. The only numbers we have that are going that direction. The second thing that we want is we want to look at a different site. They've already had, they've got sites they've looked at. They've had sites they haven't looked at. We've been in the room with them and to their credit, GoTriangle has been very forthcoming one-on-one in the last four weeks. But they keep telling us things, keep getting rolled out that make it worse. So there are places where you have rail stops, train stops where people can get on that are not yet developed, that are planned for developments, that would be perfectly, as far as I know, a more logical planning decision to make. So we would like other sites looked at and compared given currently now, 2018, what's happening, what's the development out there? And we would like a noise study. Am I missing anything from my crowd? Excuse me. Thank you. Sit down, okay? Notify, Creekside parents. Yeah, please take a seat. Okay, I think that there's a major issue with the Creekside parents that because of the way the school has been set up and this is not, so the schools have taken a position that political issues cannot be discussed on school grounds. I don't know the reasons for that, but I would think safety is one reason. And so the parents don't get information when GoTriangle contacts the administrative offices. Not only the parents are not getting any kind of direct notification, but the school refuses to pass that information on. I've seen those emails myself. Do you consider the attestations made by your neighbors who were relying on their expertise by virtue of their training and past experience? You consider those attestations neutral? I'm not understanding your first word. Do I consider what neutral? The folk who said, who made comments about the noise based upon their, are they neutral? Our two noise experts? Yes. Do I consider them neutral? I do consider them neutral. I also talked with, what is his name? Stewart, from Stewart Acoustics, and he's retiring and he didn't have time to take it all on, but he's the first person I could get hold of. He's the one that all my lawyer friends recommended to me, and he was kind enough to email me three or four times back. He is certainly in agreement with them that the study is at best confusing and at most alarming. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much. No, I'm sorry. Public hearing's open, over. We've, no, sorry. He asked for some numbers or whatever. Sir, you can't give me that, right? You can't give me that, sir. You can give it to the clerk. Thank you very much. Okay, any more questions? At this point, I'm gonna declare this public hearing closed and the matter is now before the council. There may be more questions for staff or if council members at this point wanna make any statements. Any more questions? I have a couple for Go Triangle staff. Mr. Charters. When you thought you were out. Mr. Charters, my question is, what would you anticipate the noise that would be heard at the school would be? Because I think that the, one of the most salient concerns I've heard from people is that the noise at the school at the creek side would be very loud. It would be interrupt instruction. It would hurt the ability of kids to learn. Kids would have to wear noise canceling headphones. I mean, what's your sense of what the noise levels we might expect at creek side would be? Mayor, the analysis that was done doesn't have a, because it wasn't an impact to the school. It's not documented exactly what the level is there. We know that it's about a quarter of a mile, some folks have mentioned a third of a mile away, and the noise is gonna dissipate significantly. We would suggest that the noise from the school buses that are there are as loud or louder than what they would hear from the maintenance facility. I mean, the. The decibel level of a school bus that's starting up. Right, so by the time the noise gets, we're talking over 1,000 feet, 1,300 feet or so, from where the noise is generated on the curved track, some elevation up and over and across all of the wooded areas and the different buildings and such that are gonna block the noise. I can't imagine that it would even be heard to tell you the truth. Thank you. When you think about working with this community, let's assume that we were to approve this rezoning and you all have talked about mitigation. How would you anticipate over the, this light rail, we're 10 years away from running a light rail, assuming that the light rail does get funded and approved and so forth. How would you anticipate working with a community should we choose to approve this rezoning and should the light rail get built in terms of future mitigation of noise? What would you think, what would a process look like and how would you make decisions about any future mitigations? That's a great question. So one of the things that we had mentioned or shared with the community and one of the, actually it was at Creekside, one of the past public meetings is we had a kind of a workshop where we had a palette of different choices for fences and building finishes and vegetative buffer to solicit from the community what were their choices that could be along the perimeter along the edge of Farrington Road. And we're certainly happy to revisit that since it's been maybe over a year or so since that occurred to see if there's any difference of opinion on the type of fence, how opaque it is, how solid it is versus permeable to view. That's certainly one of the things. The other thing is, as mentioned, the level of the noise is prescribed by the FTA on what has to be in the model. Going forward as part of our mitigation plan that's under development for the moderate impacts which Cope Arbor is under, we are certainly looking at measuring the noise that actually comes out once the facility is built and once the light rail vehicles are going around a curve that's lubricated or whatever the vehicle ends up being because obviously we've not purchased the vehicles yet. So there's a little bit of uncertainty there, of course, on a finished product. And we can certainly work with the community, take noise level readings even at their houses if that is something that they'd be interested in as we have the facility built if we're so lucky to have the rezoning pass this evening and work with the community to actually measure real life readings similar to what was in the Hampton Roads light rail report that I shared after the fact is always a lot more accurate than trying to decipher a model. So am I to understand then that, let's say the time that you would have some sort of reality there would be nine years from now or something where the light rail is not operating but you're beginning to run trains into the romp and you're able to actually measure that actual situation. Correct. And then so you're saying that that would give some real life to what is otherwise basically modeling and using the experience of others such as the Norfolk. Correct. Right, okay. Okay, I think those are all my questions. Any other questions? Council members? Council Member Caballero. I was thinking through the testing portion depending on where people fall on the curb and I know there's different strategies to mitigate noise. Would it be something that would go triangle be willing to be more aggressive in the sense of instead of planting trees for an individual actually helping insulate their house, things like that because I know that there's different strategies and so instead of, I know that that's for the severe but what I'm saying is that maybe we're kinder to those folks that that's what ends up happening. Yeah, and we're happy to evaluate that when we have the real life numbers if that's what's agreed upon and to address the concerns of the community. We have to remember too that this is all public money so we're trying to do things that we need to do to satisfy the impacts that we're causing but obviously within reason. And you have moderate impacts, various places along the line I heard you say as well and so I assume these same sorts of processes would operate at those places as well not just where the romp is. Yes, sir. And so you'd be looking for mitigation strategies along the line and various once we have more information. That's correct. Council Member Freeman. Thank you. I am truly in awe of the organizing that has happened in this community and I'm very thankful for the 4-4 vote that came out of the planning commission that caused the last four weeks of conversation to come out of this and for more clarity to come out of GoTriangle. I really would like to ask, I'm glad that all my other colleagues have asked most of my questions. I'm learning to wait. But I really had a couple of questions around the buffers and whether or not you would have any phasing plans around those buffers considering that this is like 10 years out. So would you be working towards building the tree heights over time or would you just be installing after construction? To clarify the construction phase for the project, right now the way we have it packaged because 18 miles of light rail is a lot of construction, obviously. So what we're calling the civil west package which is from UNC hospitals to just east of Patterson Place is the first construction package that would be advertised to be built. That contractor will do the rough grading at the romp site, build some retaining walls, et cetera. We could consider including in that the berm construction, because there's vegetation that's gonna be planted on top of the berm. Some folks talked about a single row of evergreen trees but that is in addition to what's already planned to be planted on top of the buffer. So one of the things we can look at in our construction packaging is if we start the growth sooner, then the trees will be at a higher elevation to help block the facility. I had done some quick math and based on the height of the building along Farrington Road, the building that's closest to the entrance to the Patterson Mill Store, the south end, which is closer to the entrance to the Culp Arbor, the building would only be about 12 feet above the top of the berm, not counting the vegetative buffer. So most of that building is gonna be blocked by because of the elevation is down in the site. The main building itself, only the upper 20 feet would be above the berm, but again, the vegetation would block. But one of the things we can consider in the construction phasing, as I mentioned, the packaging is perhaps starting some of the vegetative growth in this first package so that the second construction package actually builds the ROM facility. So this growth could be in place and growing and helping to deflect the noise and the visual impact even before the building is built. So we can certainly consider that. And along those same lines, I would love to hear some of the feedback. There were some comments about building in the wetlands and filling in wetlands. I'm unclear because that's not what I heard. So the 18-mile project, and I apologize, I don't have the total numbers of square feet of wetlands or acres of, partials of acres. But the entire project, since it's a linear project for 18 miles long, it's gonna get permits from the Corps of Engineers, what's called a 404 and 401 permits to construct within the buffers and the wetlands as a project-wide permitting. Within the ROM itself, I have some data from the DEIS and the comparison, believe we're talking about fractions of an acre that are impacted, it's not large quantities. And so that, but that's all included in what would be a permit for the whole 18-mile corridor. Because we have numerous locations where we have small impacts to wetlands stream water resource impacts all along the project. And it's treated as an entire permit for the whole project. So specific to this ROM location, how many fractions of an acre would- So to mitigate those impacts, we would be contributing to the mitigation bank to address wetland construction elsewhere for the wetland impacts that we would have at the different sites along the whole 18-miles. And in this ROM location, how many fractions of an acre? So wetland acres, it's 0.33. Wetland acres is what's in the DEIS. I'm looking at table 8.2-3 from the DEIS. That's for the whole project, 0.3. That's just for the ROM area. For the ROM. I don't have in front of me, I'm sorry. I don't have the entire project. It's for the ROM, though. It's 0.3. Yes, ma'am. So that's a third of an acre. A third of an acre of what lands is impacted by the ROM facility. And then I also had an additional question about the substance list, apparently. It's not readily available. Okay, is there a specific question? I didn't have it. Oh, you don't have it, okay. And I believe, and John can correct me if I'm wrong, I believe this was a list of information that was shared with the community. So I have a copy here, which we'd be happy to share with council. Don't share it, Dave, just tell us about it. So there's a list of about four pages of various materials. A lot of it is cleaning materials, greases, gear oil. There's no gasoline or diesel fuel on the site. We specifically are requiring what we call the non-revenue vehicles. So other than the trains, which do not have any gasoline because they're electrically powered. The ROM facility has pickup trucks and other equipment to maintain the tracks along the alignment. We specifically said, no, you can't put any gasoline or diesel fuel on the site for those vehicles. They'll go offsite and fill up or have their vehicles serviced. And offsite is like to the bus. Correct, to the bus or some other contracted garage where you would normally get your oil changed on your personal car. And if there's, I'm not sure if it's you that needs to speak to it, but there was also a question around access to the airport for this rail line and how there wasn't any. And I would love for someone to speak to that specifically. Access to the airport. Okay, that's always a popular topic. Right now, the light rail project is part of a regional transportation plan as many of us are aware. So our friends in Wake County have talked about well they have a BRT plans and they have a commuter rail plan that would connect Erum and Raleigh. One of the stops or stations along the commuter rail would be close enough to the airport that there would then be a shuttle. But the purpose and need of the light rail project is not to get to the airport, per se. In many, many cities, the first light rail project since the ridership to the airport is somewhat variable compared to the density along the alignment where you would have apartment buildings and such that it's not always cost effective as the first alignment to be built. And so. So it does leave likelihood that the access could be created in the future, which is. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And then I had a question for staff about the signage requirement. There was a mention of us not meeting the signage requirement. I just want to make sure that it was. Do we have a notification for our planning staff? Notification requirement. That's one of the opponents did mention that there weren't sufficient signage. I just want to make sure that. Posting the property. Give me signage. The posting of the property. The property has been posted in accordance with the statute. We have affidavits down in the planning department to that effect. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions, council member? Any other council member have questions? I do have one more question. Not sure who this is for, but Mr. Woods mentioned that he believed that the GoTrain will had falsified information about African American families in a report. And so I was wondering if you could comment on that. We certainly did not falsify any information in a report. What we conducted as part of the EIS environmental document is what's called a title six equity analysis, title six of the Civil Rights Act. And that's required of any transportation investment that uses federal money. And it looks at the entire impact zone that's defined. So it's not just the properties itself, but the area around that that would be subject to impacts for each of the sites. So these are the five sites. And then it looks using, so we don't have a mechanism of knowing the race or the income level of each property owner. So we use what's called the American Community Survey, which is the US Census collects data every year. We use the data between 2007, 2011, it's called their five year estimate. And you look at the percentage of minority residents that are in that district around each property and compare that to the area's averages. So in this case, the study area, which was the entire LRT, DRLRT project study area, looked at the racial makeup and the income, low income above that for both those categories. And then you see if, okay, does the site impact higher than the overall average or the number of minorities, the percentage of minorities around each site greater than the study area percentage of minorities. And it doesn't have to be, then we have to set a threshold that is a meaningful threshold. In this case for the study area, it was 51% minority and the Farrington Road romp was 31% minority. And it was 43% low income and for the Farrington Road romp location was 22% low income. So we do that analysis and we say, this does not have a disparate impact on minorities or a disproportionate burden on low income individuals live around each of the, or in this particular site. That's how we do the analysis. Thank you. Any further questions? All right, I'll start off then. I very much wanna appreciate everybody for being here tonight. This has been, this is Durham's robust democracy at work. And I very much appreciate everybody being here for it, both pro and con. I appreciate all the meetings that have led up to it. I know that so many people here have done a tremendous amount of work to get to this night. You all have done your personal research. You all have had meetings. You all have organized. And Council Member Freeman mentioned her admiration of that. And let me just second that for people on both sides of this issue. One of the things about, so this is my 11th year in public office. And one of the things I know about is when the most people are in the room, that's when you know that the decision that you make can't be anything about politics. That's when you absolutely have to be sure about that. It's the easiest time to be sure for me. You have to think about what's really best for Durham because there are political pressures on all sides in a way like I say that kind of makes it easier. The other thing that I've had to think a lot about for myself is confirmation bias. Guarding against that. I am a light rail proponent. I've been a light rail proponent for a long time. And so I've really thought about this question. And so if you all have raised this, the need to really listen to read to evaluate this romp issue. And I have, and this rezoning issue. And so it's not that I feel like I can separate it from the light rail as a whole, I can't. But can I make an independent decision about whether or not this romp really has the deleterious effects that people have been talking about tonight from Colt Barber and the school. So I've done a whole lot of reading. I've visited Colt Barber recently, but that's probably my fifth visit to Colt Barber. I have visited the Charlotte romp myself when the romp sighting was taking place. And along with that were some folks from Colt Barber who we had along with us to go down to the Charlotte romp to see it at that time. And I will, I'm just, I'll talk a little bit about the details. But let me just say that I have, I have definitely satisfied that the romp that this property ought to be rezoned for the romp and I will be voting accordingly. Let me tell you a little bit about why. First of all, some of the things that I think that, I think that some of the concerns that people have expressed in the past didn't really seem to come up tonight very much. And I think with good reason. I think what we know, for example, about traffic, on Farrington Road and in this area is actually going to be less than what would otherwise be developed as the staff report shows. And I've seen a lot of our staff reports over the years on traffic. And I think they do a really good job. We'll be seeing less traffic than whatever else would be developed there, whether it be residential, commercial or office. I think that the, I have been having nothing to do with a romp or the light rail. I have visited on a couple of occasions, areas to the east of I-40, where there is definitely, there are important stormwater concerns, no question. Runoff from I-40 in that area is very significant. And I think that's something we need to take really seriously. And whatever happens on this romp site needs to have really good stormwater mitigation. It's very important. And that's something that our city has a strong regulation of and we need to make sure that that regulation is working. One of the things I did not hear about tonight, but which I think is in some ways, very important here is, what happens to property values when you have a romp? And I think that, so one of the interesting figures I've seen recently that from, these are just reported from Zillow. This is having to do with the Charlotte romp, which, again, I've been to. And, the, yeah, so just let me tell you a little bit about it. There's a 3,600 square foot home, 1,000 foot away from the Charlotte romp. And it's listed for $925,000. There's a duplex on Belton Street, 800 feet from the Charlotte romp, that's going for $579,000. Their luxury apartments, if you ever go to the Charlotte romp, you'll see this. Luxury apartments that literally overlook the Charlotte romp. And these are, and they overlook the Charlotte romp in an area where, and I've been to this romp, where you get the most curvature, where you would tend to get the most wheel squeal. There are 539 square foot studio apartments there that are leasing for $1,350 a month. The Charlotte romp has definitely not diminished property values. It is definitely not diminished them at all. I think that there are several other concerns that I think are really important here that we have to think about and that I've really tried to consider. One of the things I think is that, I get why people are concerned that there can be an industrial facility across the street from you. I totally get that. If I heard that, I would feel very concerned as well. But I think having again been to the Charlotte romp and knowing what is planned for this romp, it's not going to be a factory, which I think is what I think of when I think of an industrial facility. I think that it's going to be a very nice building. And having been to the Charlotte romp, it is going to be a building that they're proud of theirs and it looks kind of like an office building. And I think that we will have a good building that won't feel anything like a factory. It'll be a sleek modern building where trains are washed and repaired. I was at the Charlotte romp in 2015, maybe 16. And we were had a meeting upstairs on the second floor. We were there to, there were myself, some of the county commissioners, some folks from Culpe Arbor, other residents of Durham. And we wanted to find out about what their romp was like for the same reason that you all wanted to. And we had this meeting on the second floor and at the end of the meeting, one of the staff members of the Charlotte romp said, did you hear any trains today? Did you hear any trains go by? I said, no, I didn't hear a single train. They said, two trains went under the office building that we were on the second floor. They went underneath us on the first floor and made a turn around into the romp. And we didn't hear them. And we were on the second floor. And I think that while our curvature is going to be more difficult in Durham for sure, it is going to be noisier than the, the wheel squeal will be noisier, I believe in the Charlotte romp because of the angle. I still think that that's a relevant experience. I think that the most salient concern definitely is noise. And I really appreciate all the things that you all have raised about noise. I would be concerned too. And I think that you all are right to talk about that. And I think it's really important that as time moves forward, once we know more about this, that there be the kind of mitigation that will make these moderate noises, ones that you all can mitigate. I do think, I will tell you one thing that I feel very strongly about though, that I think is been, I think that the noise concerns at Culp Arbor, Culp Arbor are something that we really need to be considering and thinking about as we move forward. I don't really feel the same way about the school. I've been to the, Charlotte romp site has a school as John Talmage read about the same distance away as Creekside. There are not going to be noise effects at the school. Think about this. Every time a diesel bus starts off at the school, it has an 80 decibel sound at the school. Every time you turn it on and get going. The, that is very different, much, much louder than a 60 or 70 decibel sound, 1300 feet away over all kinds of topography. I do not believe, and I am concerned that the, that the parents at the school have been made to think or led to think that there will be significant noise impacts. I do not believe there'll be significant noise impacts and I worry that people are being misled to think that. Not purposely, not that someone's trying to mislead them for some nefarious reason, but that the information isn't good. And I think that the information that Dave Charters gave is really important. The school bus that starts off in the parking lot at the school has an 80 decibel noise level every time it starts. That's more than the wheel squill will be at the romp 1300, 1500 feet away. So I think that that's really, really important to think about. And in terms of this, yeah. So I do believe that the light rail will be transformational for our region, but I need to make a decision despite that about this individual rezoning. I know that this, the question about the, about the going to the airport, this is going to be the first backbone of a regional transportation system. Our next step will be the commuter rail. That commuter rail will go from Durham to Raleigh. We have a partner in Raleigh now. We didn't used to, but we do now. There will be a way to easily transfer to get to the airport. This will, this is also 10 years away. And one of the interesting things that we have with the light rail, one of the important things is we have what we would call the bus dividend. We have 20,000 people in Durham that ride a bus every day. We work very hard to try to both improve our bus service, increase it, and keep the expenses low, keep the fares low. Well, we do, we succeeded that because a lot of people need this. The light rail will have the same fare as the buses, so people will have very inexpensive ways to get places. But in addition, the light rail will reap a bus dividend. That is the lines that are now being served by buses where the light rail will go will be able to be deployed in the rest of Durham and will really be a way to continue to improve our bus system. If we're serious about the quality of life in our region, we're either gonna be stuck in traffic in 15501 and I-40, for the rest of my life and long beyond it, unless we have a strong regional transit system, which will include light rail, commuter rail, and bus. That is an absolute essential if we're serious about our quality of life. The environmental concerns about the ROMP, the buffering, and so forth is really important. But the most, if we mean it about climate change, there's nothing we can do in our region that's more important than the light rail. The light rail is the biggest single step we can change, the biggest single step we can take in order to have an effect on climate change locally, getting that many cars off the road. And I was really appreciative of everybody in here expressing support for light rail because it is so important. But again, I had to ask myself, okay, even given that, is there a persuasive case against this ROMP-free zoning? And I really don't think that there is. I think that the noise concerns are very important and I know that over time we'll really need to work with GoTriangle and enforce their mitigation of the noise concerns, which we'll know a lot more about over time. So those are my thoughts and I'll now turn it over to my council colleagues for theirs as well. Council Member Rees. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Like my colleagues before me, I just wanna thank everybody that came out and spoke tonight. It's really a testament as you said, Mr. Mayor, to the kind of democracy we have in Durham where people can come and express themselves with here in the chamber and by email. I've been able to correspond with some of you by email over the last couple of weeks. Actually mailed a couple of actual letters last week, Mr. Mayor, to the folks who reached out. Unfortunately, I have received one physical letter Friday afternoon that I could not respond to, so hopefully I'll track that person down in the next couple of days and talk to them. I hate those crime shows, Mr. Mayor, where the judge is handing down a verdict and they're like, well, on the one hand and on the other hand, it just delays the inevitable and for a prosecutor, I had some judges do that. It was really annoying. So I'm not gonna do that tonight. I will tell folks right now that I intend to support the rezoning request by Go Triangle. I'm not gonna repeat a lot of the things you said, Mr. Mayor, but I wanna say two things about this. First of all, I am one of the most persuasive arguments against, I don't even know if it was an argument against the Roth, it was an idea was posed by my colleague, Council Member Middleton at the other end of the dais. He wanted, I think, he asked a really piercing question about this issue. And that was, are we as a community bending over backwards to take into account the concerns of powerful interests in this community while we refuse to listen to the folks who live nearest this facility? I think that's a really powerful question and I really respect you for raising it, Council Member Middleton, and I've spent a lot of time over here at my end of the day thinking about this. And before this, when we were in our office talking about it, my office talking about it this afternoon, I guess I wanna say about that, what I would say is it appears to me from where I sit that the genuflecting as you put it, you're so great at this stuff. The genuflecting that I think some of us perceive is because there have been changes required seemingly at the last minute that folks in our community, stakeholders, whose participation in light rail is critical to its success have been taken by surprise about. And so some of the activities, some of the genuflecting, I guess if I wanna keep using that word, has been because of that stark reality. But I think the concerns that have been raised by people in this room who live near this particular location, it seems to me, have been baked into the design of the facility from the very beginning. And that's why Council Member Middleton, when you asked the representatives from GO Triangle, are we being as aggressive in considering these concerns as we are the other types of concerns? That's why I think staff started talking about the design of the facility itself, the mitigation features that have been baked in since the very beginning. So I think that's why they were able to give you an answer with honesty and integrity. Yes, we have considered these deep concerns just as much as we're considering the others. So I'm heartened by that. But more, the second thing I wanted to talk about is the noise concerns. I share some of what the mayor said about the kind of the reality versus perception. But I guess what I really wanna make sure folks understand is that there is no exception in our noise ordinance for this facility. It defies logic and reason and common sense to think that GO Triangle would in their hearts believe that this facility would generate the kind of sound that you all are afraid of and still build the thing, still invest. I know, they don't get paid more whether this thing gets built or not. There's no profit motive here. They believe it's an important project. I believe it's an important project. But why would they build a facility that generates this kind of noise when you can stop it with a phone call if that happens? You can stop it with a phone call. Can I have order, please? Can I have order, please? Thank you. The noise ordinance exists for this very reason. It is here to protect all of us from the kind of noises that you tell me you're afraid of. If I read that report and saw that number, 136 decibels, I would also be terrified. I would be just as terrified as you were when you first read it. I guarantee you that. I was a parent of Creekside. I was a resident of Colbarber. If I lived anywhere near this thing, 136 decibels, oh my gosh. I'm never gonna be able to sleep again. But that doesn't make any sense. It just doesn't. I know you're afraid. I know you're concerned about this. But under what possible scenario could they operate a facility at that volume? It can't possibly happen. And if we go through this entire process and they build the thing, the first night trains come through, what are you gonna do? You're gonna call the police and say, oh my gosh, this thing is making this noise. Please bring the sound meter down. That's what I would do if I lived where you live. Is the person who lives closest to this facility in the room right now? Is she here? Where's that person? The person who left, she left. I'm sorry she left. But Ruth, let's say you lived there. That night, that first night, you hear that sound. You call 911, you call the police down. That's what you're gonna do, right? They're gonna bring the sound meter, right? And if it violates the noise ordinance, they have to stop it. That's the way this works. Excuse me, excuse me. They have to stop it. They can't be doing it. Excuse me, Charlie, excuse me. I'm gonna ask members of the audience, please listen to council member Reese. Everybody in the audience, we've been listening, we've started about four hours ago in this hearing, maybe three and a half. Everybody's had their chance. This is now the council member's chance and I'm gonna ask you all to please respect that, okay? Whether or not you agree, it's okay. We're all gotta respect each other and listen, all right? So council member Reese, please go ahead. It doesn't make any sense to think that the law would force y'all for the next 30 years of your lives that this facility exists to call the police every time this happens. That doesn't make any sense. It doesn't. You can shrug your head and shake your head and yell, you want, Ruth, I promise. That doesn't make sense. That's not how this works. If that sound does actually create, which I have no reason to believe it would be, based on the information that we have in front of us right now. None of you, by the way, has told me that a train making these turns is gonna make that sound level where you live or that it's gonna bother you at all. You haven't shown me that. Now, your argument is, go trangle hasn't shown us that it won't, right? Right, that's your argument. Not that it will absolutely 100% make this noise. It's that go triangle has approved you that it won't. That is the argument you're making. But from my perspective, we've had folks come up here and talk to us about what the sound will actually be compared with other types of sounds, both that are created at Cree side, whatever other things that they talked about. The fact that that number, that 136 decibel number appeared in the report, is scary, but there's no reason, there's no rational reason why go triangle would build a facility that would generate that much sound. I know you're saying then they shouldn't build it there. I'm saying, if it was gonna make that much noise, they wouldn't, okay? That's just not accurate. And I know that's hard to accept. I hear that, but there's no way that makes any sense. And so my hope is that you take away from this meeting my assurance to you, that the noise ordinance here is here to protect against the very harm you're talking about, the exact one. And if I'm wrong, which God knows I've been in the past, I will begin, if I'm wrong and they build a facility that generates 136 decibels of noise at three in the morning, there is absolutely positively no way that that would continue in this community. And I know you don't believe that, but there's just no way that would happen. And so I hope that what you take from this is not they're just gonna ram it through and make this loud noise or we're gonna have to live with it for the rest of our lives. But instead, what you take away from it is that report in elegantly described a situation which subsequent explanations have given a real description of and that there won't be 136 decibels of noise created 50 times a day at three o'clock in the morning. That the actual sounds that are created are gonna be much more reasonable, much more in line with what we have seen at other facilities, what we have, what has been talked about here. And if it's not, we will fix it. You will call the police, we will stop the noise from happening and we'll make it right. And so, Mr. Mayor, that's why I tend to vote for the measure tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. And Council Member Reyes. Council Member Freeman. Oh my goodness, I'm sorry. It's late. I think I come from a very different standpoint and recognizing that if this were any developer coming into Durham to make this request, this would be a no vote across the board. That is very clear. I'm hard pressed because I'm looking at a very, let me back up by saying, what struck me in the comments most was the comments around the children in the schools around trains. And I have to say, as a child that grew up in the Bronx, New York, underneath a train station, I mean, it's just hard. I'm just hard pressed on that, that I cannot accept. That's just ludicrous. But I get it, I understand. I recognize that GoTriangle hasn't been transparent throughout this process. I inherited this project that's over 25 years old. And we are where we are today because people have been speaking up and stating their case and actually pushing for GoTriangle to be more equitable in making sure that they were engaging the residents. It is unfortunate that it's your neighborhood that is on the chopping block, so to speak, because you have no benefit, but you carry the burden, but you carry the burden for all of Durham in this conversation. I am like, if this rail yard would have been in Eastern, none of this would have been discussed. None of this conversation, none of these meetings, none of the outpouring of people, like all of this I recognize is because of your white privilege and your ability to organize in a way that communities of color do not and cannot. I want you to sit with that for a moment and recognize that it is your white privilege that has us here at 1127 on December the 3rd, almost a year in office. I am sitting here talking to you about this rail yard, which if it were a developer, asking for a two-story building would not be an option. On the opposite side of this conversation, I have been also a very huge proponent of light rail. I am sorely concerned about where we're going with this, and I've said it a number of times, like we continue to chop away different parts and pieces of this project, and it makes it less and less appealing to the point where the people who are proponents of light rail are standing in opposition that includes you guys who stood up and said that you support light rail, but this wrong facility does not seem like the right place. I get it. The folks who've talked about downtown around Blackwell, the folks who've been upset about different station area stops. And my main concern in this process is making sure that it's done in a way that does not create more harm than good. And recognizing that we have lived through a process where urban renewal has destroyed neighborhoods, this is not the same thing. This is not. Let's not be confused. Let's not try to wrap it up into something that it's not. I'm more concerned about what comes out of this process as we move forward, which is the reason why if you're here for the cooperative agreement conversation, you'll hear a whole lot more about how upset I've been with GoTriangle and their presentation and lack of information and complete like just myths in this conversation around Durham. Because I know that they understand that we're in Durham, North Carolina, and the city of Durham is pretty progressive. And I don't understand how there's so much missing the communications and the, I mean, even the report, like just the errors in a report that you're sending to the federal government sounds crazy to me, but we'll leave that here. Recognizing that there is very, you guys are outmatched with Durham Can and the People's Alliance and, I mean, the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit, these folks have all been organizing for the 20 years that we've been talking about Light Rail. For you new residents who have moved into Cope Harbor in the last 10 years, you're kinda at the end of this conversation and I hate it for you. I recognize that I've lived in a community and I live next, I should say, I live next to a rail line. So I understand exactly what you're saying. Now I live in Golden Belt and all of the debates, all of the work that's gone into making sure that our neighborhood is safe, that we have what we need, it is important to make sure that you recognize even if you lose this stand tonight, this conversation is not over, it is gonna continue. And I would like to offer that I would be the strongest supporter of making sure that as Council Member Rees mentioned, what you're requesting of us is not impossible. But what we are requesting of you to carry this load is gonna be, it's with a heavy heart that I ask you to do that because I am gonna support this. It's important that we are thinking about the next 30 years in Durham and it's important that we're focused on how to make this light rail come to life. And I know that this is not, it's not the best situation to be in, but I know that we are here and we're listening and I know GoTriangle over the last four weeks has done a much better job than they have in the last five, 10 years. And I appreciate that they brought in John Tomage to be the project manager because I know that he is very adamant about making sure he hears concerns from neighbors and actually it acts on them. And so I just continue to, I just continue to ask you to be open to the concept and to consistently bring your issues to us and to consistently bring them to them. But this process does have to move forward. I understand that it's unfortunate. But I mean, I really appreciate how well you guys have organized and I can't say enough, like, thank you. I mean, I don't think I would have, you've given me a whole new list of issues to ask in every zoning case that comes here. And I think folks around this day understand I have a long list of questions. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Austin. Thank you. I also wanna thank everyone for your participation in the public hearing and throughout this process. I will trim my comments. So this project, if approved, will bring change to an area that has experienced significant change over the last few years. And change like what is proposed tonight should not happen easily. Should be challenged in exactly the way that many of you have tonight. Many of your concerns, which I won't outline at this point. I'll just echo the concerns outlined by the mayor. Many of those are very important. They are worthy of timely answers from our staff and from Go Triangle. And they are certainly worthy of our consideration because this is your neighborhood. This is your community and we take that very seriously. However, while I do think those concerns are very important, they do not persuade me to vote against this rezoning. As the mayor mentioned, our decisions including those about land use must reflect the best interests of everyone in Durham. This rezoning I believe serves those interests. I believe it to be appropriate and critical to future transportation innovation in Durham and in our region. The light rail stands to move tens of thousands of people through our region every day. And in doing so, help to manage our growth, support the development of affordable housing, free us from daily isolation that our cars encourage, improve access to jobs and services that for those who need and deserve it most and help us all level the playing field when it comes to transportation options. I think this is an appropriate location for this facility. Our staff recommendation is consistent with that assessment and I intend to vote in favor of this rezoning. Thank you council member. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And also in the interest of time, I'm not gonna go through my thoughts and comments on all of your concerns. I think my colleagues have done a good job with that, but I wanted to talk a little bit about the impact of growth in the city. And we, I feel like the issue has been framed as if y'all are, I wanna make it clear that we're all having to deal with the impacts of growth, both positive and negative impacts of growth. I live in a neighborhood. I live a quarter mile from the highway. I live less than a mile from downtown. I experienced the consequences of growth every single day. Some nights the, you know, the fireworks from the, from the de-pack, I'm sorry, from the ballpark, you know, make it hard for me to put my kids to sleep. There's construction happening in my neighborhood on a daily basis. We all live in a growing city. We all face impacts from that growth. And some of those things are great. We have, you know, a lot of new opportunities that we can come into downtown and see a Broadway show or, you know, go to an amazing restaurant. There are also negative impacts to that growth. A huge housing crisis, the highest level of evictions in the state. And this light rail is a way for us to grow sustainably into the future. It's one of the key pieces of a transportation vision for our region that isn't for any of us up here. It's for our kids. It's for our grandkids. It's so that they don't have to, you know, sit in the kind of traffic that we have to sit in right now in cities like Atlanta and in cities like LA. That's gonna kill your property values. You know, I mean, these are the things that I'm concerned about and I think about the future of the region and the growth that we're in. And we're one of the fastest growing cities for capitol in the country right now. We're on the leading edge of these concerns. So I just wanted to make it clear. It's not just y'all. We are all dealing with the impacts of this growing region every day. And we're all doing the best that we can to manage, to manage those impacts and to manage the impacts of growth here on the council and in our communities, in our communities at large. And this project is critical for that growth to be able to create a community that can still sustain itself, that can be livable for our future generations, a place where people actually want to live and actually wanna move here. And so again, I appreciate you all bringing your concerns. I feel like the information that I've gotten tonight and the concerns that I've gotten from all of y'all, I am of the opinion that this light rail project is important enough that we need to move forward with this rezoning, but this is the best location, even with its problems, that any other place would be far worse than what we have. And actually weren't even viable. There's no other location that where we could put this facility that is needed. And that the concerns about noise, the concerns about chemicals, these are all the city is growing and these are issues that are going to occur in all parts of the city. It's not just folks that live downtown, near downtown who have to deal with the impacts of growth. We all have to deal with the impacts of growth. And I am confident that if there is a noise problem at Creekside Elementary, which I sincerely believe that an 80 decibel noise at a facility a third of a mile away will not cause a noise impact. But if there's a problem 10 years from now, that that is something that we as a community will fix. We are not going to allow the sort of issues that I think we are, that you all are concerned about. We will not as a community accept those concerns, but accept the realization of those issues. But I really don't think it's gonna be that bad, y'all. And I think this project is really important for our community. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Council Member Caballero. Just to echo, thank you for coming out. It is democracy in action when we have a packed house like it was tonight and it was definitely packed. Thanks for staying so late. It is a very late evening. I wanna echo what many of my colleagues have already said. I also wanna keep my comments brief. I will be on council for a year just in January. So I'm the newest kid on the block. And the thing that sticks with me, and this is why the parents from Creekside, I have three children. They are also under in public schools. Those concerns are not lost on me, but I also have to make decisions for everyone's kids and light rail and getting cars off our roads and planning sustainably. That is, for me, one of the most important concerns as an elected official. I have to look to the future. We have to be visionary and the light rail does that for us. So I will also be voting for the zoning. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Middleton. Do you wanna make sure that all of us speak? Just briefly, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I grew up on trains and buses. I'm originally from Brooklyn. And one of the things that strikes me reflecting on those days riding trains and buses was the egalitarian nature of transportation. There'd be a homeless person and the millionaire stockbroker all in the same place. I think no truly great city can call itself great without having the ability for its citizens and residents to access all of the things that make city wonderful without a car. We can't be a great metropolis without that type of system. I wanna say very directly to all of you, there was no inevitability in my vote for this. And I know some folks suggested that because of sunken cost and because of inertia and because so much time had already been put in the project that we had no choice. I didn't feel obligated to vote yes on this because of sunken cost. That's not a compelling argument to me. In about 20 minutes, I would have been in office first term, first year. So perhaps a combination of arrogance or inexperience made me totally unafraid to vote no on this project. I came here prepared to listen to all sides. I think there were polar point arguments on each side. On the one hand, I was waiting to hear about this brooding hellscape with this toxic smoke belching bomb factory as its centerpiece. I don't think that this project is this. On the other hand, it's not this utopic shining city with absolutely zero impact on the neighborhood as well. I don't believe that either. I'm gonna vote for this. And I don't think this is a politically expedient vote. I'm not voting for this because of any particular group. I'm voting for this out of principle. I think this is the right thing for our city. This is a legacy vote. This is a trajectory vote. This is one of those moments where you have to make a decision based upon principle. Let me tell you why I don't think this is a politically expedient vote. You guys generated a petition of almost 1,000 people in a regular Durham election. That's a margin of victory. This is not a politically expedient vote. Because I can count, I know how to count. But I think that you're not fit to hold office until you've found a reason that you're willing to lose it for. This is a principle vote. I think it's right for the city. I'm not afraid to vote no, but after sitting through this hearing tonight, I'm more comfortable with approving this rezoning. And listen, this ain't over. If it's noisy, if more work needs to be done, I think to a person on this panel, we're committed to working with you. I hope to be around to ride the trains when they finally come to fruition. And if that day comes and we have more work to do, I believe we're committed. I know we're committed to doing what's necessary to make this romp in this entire light rail project as beneficial and as wonderful to all of us as possible. This is a principle vote for me. It's not a politically expedient vote. I will be supporting the rezoning. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, council member. Alrighty, council members. Now it's time to take action on this item. The first motion I'll ask for is to adopt an ordinance annexing the rail operations main facility property in the city of Durham, effective December 31st, 2018. So moved. Second. We moved and seconded. Madam clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. Motion passes seven zero. Thank you. I'll accept a motion to adopt the resolution admitting the future land use map. So moved. Second. Madam clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. Motion passes seven zero. Thank you. The motion to adopt a consistency statement. So moved. Second. And moved and seconded. We adopted a consistency statement. Madam clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote. Motion passes seven zero. Thank you. And the motion, the fourth motion to adopt an ordinance admitting the UDO. So moved. Second. And moved and seconded. We adopt the motion number four. Madam clerk, please open the vote. Thank you. Please close the vote. The motion passes seven zero. Thank you. Again, I wanna thank everyone for being here tonight. On both sides of this issue, we appreciate you very much. And now we're gonna move on to item, we have several more items tonight. We have actually about, we have a lot more items tonight. We're gonna move on right away to consolidate an annexation item for weaving water. And I'll ask if we have as a public hearing item, Ms. Sunyak, welcome. Good evening, Jamie Sunyak with the planning department. Request for a utility extension agreement, voluntary annexation and a zoning map change have been received from Danielle Brestel for two parcels totaling 12.31 acres, generally located at 3912 and 3920 Rivermont Road. The annexation petition seeks to bring the parcels into the existing contiguous city limits. The subject site is presently zoned, residential suburban 20, RS 20. The applicant is requesting a zoning designation of plan development residential 1.964, it's PDR 1.964. The parcel is currently designated as low density residential or dwelling units or less on the future land use map, which is consistent with the rezoning request. If approved, the annexation petition and zoning change will become effective on December 31st, 2018. Key commitments associated with this plan, developing the property with single family, two family and multiplex, but limited to 24 residential units, limiting structures on the property to 4,000 square feet, preserving the existing evergreen vegetation along Rivermont Road. The public works and water management departments have determined that the existing water and sewer mains have the capacity for the proposed development. The budget and management services department determined that the proposed annexation will have a positive fiscal impact immediately upon annexation. The Durham Planning Commission at their August 14th meeting recommended approval of the proposed zoning district by a vote of 13 to zero. Staff determines that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan apical policies and ordinances. Remotions are required for this application. The first is required by law to approve the utility extension agreement and the voluntary annexation petition. The second is to adopt a consistency statement. And the third is for the zoning ordinance. I will be happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you very much, Ms. Sunyak. You've heard the report from staff. I'm now gonna declare this public hearing open. And first I wanna ask if there are any questions for staff by members of the council? Just a quick question. Have there been any changes since the Planning Commission meeting to the case? The only change was the proffer offered at the Planning Commission limiting the structures to 4,000 square feet. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Alrighty, well now here we have two people that have signed up to speak on this agenda. Item one is Katie Hamilton and the other is Danielle Brestel. And if you all are here, please proceed to the microphone and you each have three minutes. Hi. Thank you for hearing our case tonight. We appreciate you taking the time so late at night. Can you identify yourself? Tell us where you live. My name is Katie Hamilton. I live at 1010 Skyler Lane in Durham and I work for Stuart Engineering, or Stuart. So the Weaving Water Project does not actually change the density of the land at all. It currently is zoned for RS-20. We are rezoning it to be a PDR of just under two units an acre. So we're not changing the density but we're just rezoning it to allow for buildings to contain more than one unit. And as part of that rezoning, we feel that we're meeting the city's current initiative to provide the missing middle that is discussed in the expanding housing choices that are initiatives that are in front of City Council today, which include duplexes and triplexes, which are what we are focusing on here. As Ms. Sunyak pointed out, based on the Planning Commission hearing, we have committed to only having 4,000 square foot buildings which could contain up to three units each. We also on the request of the Planning Commission did reach out to the DOT and did get Rivermont Road repaved since that hearing. Nothing has really changed since Planning Commission with the existing conditions and proposed development plan. As you can see, we're trying to keep our building envelope within an already cleared area of the property. And our preferred scenario is to actually use the rest of the land that we're also annexing as conservation land, if at all possible. From a financial standpoint, it may not be possible, but regardless, we're not going to fully develop this land at the rate of the RS-20 subdivision, which would allow, so. We're also committing to a max of 20% impervious area, which is less than is allowed by zoning by right. And we're hoping to promote a green corridor through the site, connecting the state park down to Valley Springs Park through HOA lands adjacent. Thanks. Thank you very much. Ms. Brestel? Yes. Hi, I'm Danielle Brestel. I live at 2036 Hillock Place and I'm the applicant. I decided to develop this co-housing community to provide a better quality of life for my family and others. My parents moved to Durham two years ago and had a very hard time finding a one-story, modestly sized home in a natural setting that would fulfill their desire to age in place. We also struggled to find accessible housing with a sense of community where neighbors could look out for one another like at Eno Commons or Solterra. We're seeking this rezoning in order to cluster houses into multiplexes and provide clustered areas of parking near the property entrance rather than driveways with parking at each residence. We're interested in stacking the units to provide some accessible homes for those with mobility limitations. And we plan to group two or three units with modest sized footprints from 800 to 1,800 square feet in each building. As was mentioned before, the buildings will have a maximum of 4,000 square feet to keep within the current neighborhood aesthetic of single family dwellings, which was requested by the neighbors. Our desire to develop intelligent two-story solutions with clustered parking is deeply connected to our desire to minimize the impervious surface, preserve water quality and forest coverage and encourage interaction between neighbors. Compared to the current RS-20 zoning, our plan greatly reduces the negative impact on the watershed and maintains a forested environment to maintain the Eno River State Park experience. We're providing original solution for housing needs and expanding Durham Housing Choices in an environmentally responsible way. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Brestel. Is there anyone else who would like to be heard on this item? This is a public hearing item. Is there anyone else in attendance who would like to be heard on this item tonight? If not, council members, are there any questions for staff or the applicant? Any comments, questions? Mr. Mayor, if I might just ask a quick question about price points. At this point, we have gotten initial estimates from contractors and are expecting our price points to be between $250,000 and $460,000. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Council members, any other questions, comments? If not, I'm going to declare this public hearing closed and matters back for the council. Is there a motion to adopt the ordinance annexing weaving water into the city of Durham? Move. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt the first motion. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you. Is there a motion to adopt a consistency statement? So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt the consistency statement. Madam Clerk, please open the vote. The motion passes 7-0. Thank you. Is there a motion to adopt the ordinance amending the UDO? So moved, Mr. Mayor. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we amend the UDO. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. Again, the motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. Thank you all for being here. We look forward to your development and make it a good one. Thank you. We'll now move to item 39, consolidated item for Durham Public Schools, elementary school C, and we will now hear from staff. Let me just make it a little, give an introduction here to this hearing. This is the quasi-judicial hearing. I don't know that my colleagues have ever experienced a quasi-judicial hearing, my new colleagues. Oh, yeah, I've been in some judicial hearings. I've been in some judicial hearings. I've been in judicial hearings, I don't know. Charlie and you and Gillian have been in work? No, have we done one? I don't want to have the housing appeals board. Yeah. I know, the start of the first two. All right, so, I have a script. It'll help us. You need it. The next matter is agenda item 39, consolidated item for Durham Public Schools, elementary school C. The hearing of this matter is quasi-judicial in nature and will be conducted in accordance with special safeguards. Witnesses must be sworn in, they are subject to being cross-examined and written evidence must be formally offered. This quasi-judicial hearing is being held to consider the first two agenda items under agenda item 39. The first motion is to adopt in order approving the transportation special use permit. Second motion is to adopt in order approving the major special use permit. The third motion to approve the major site plan is not subject to quasi-judicial hearing and will be voted on after city council concludes the hearing and votes on the first two motions, according to our usual fabulous way of just arguing about stuff. Was that the script? Was that the script? Absolutely. Okay. Before we begin, I'd like the attorneys for the applicant and for opponents or for a representative from each side. If there are no attorneys to come to the microphone, identify yourself for the council and take a seat in the front row. I'll have a punch. Thank you, Mayor Tripotem and members of council. I'm Deborah Stagner from Therington Smith, law firm in Raleigh. I'm here on behalf of Durham Public Schools, who's the applicant in this case. Thank you. Good to see you. If Ms. Stagner, I guess you're the only attorney here for this. If an attorney or representative wishes to cross-examine a witness, please raise your hand immediately after the witness is testified and I'll recognize you. All written information, including maps. You want to be considered should be officially submitted as evidence. Copies of evidence you want to have submitted with the exception of the staff report and attachments should be given to the city attorney and to the other side. Each side may raise objections to admission of evidence on the basis of hearsay or other grounds. Questions concerning admissibility will be handled by the city attorney. Please do not hand anything directly to council members until it's first been reviewed by the city attorney has been admitted as evidence. We will first hear from city staff who study the request, then from the applicant and then from the opponents of the application. And then council members, if the applicant seeking this major special use permit produces evidence demonstrating compliance with the city's UDO, the applicant is entitled to have the permit issued unless substantial competent evidence is introduced supporting denial of the permit. Okay, I think we should hear from staff. Next Patrick, is that ready to do the swearing? We'll do the swearing. Do the swearing, okay. People who wish to testify should have signed up on the special sheet for this hearing at the clerk's station. Has that happened? Madam clerk, is there a special sheet there that people should sign into? All right, those cards. Thank you, Ashley. I'm just glad they didn't send Kensua over here. How are we doing, guys? Everybody signed up? Okay. One more. All right, people who wish to testify if you've signed up should now go to the clerk's station to be sworn in or give your affirmation and return to your seats. Madam clerk. Just one more. Okay, can y'all please? Please raise your right hands. You swear? Repeat after me, please. You swear? That the testimony you shall give to the Durham City Council shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help you God. Thank you. Thank you. Now council members, we have a different sort of set up here than we usually do. I'm gonna ask this question for each council member, for all of us. Do any council members wish to withdraw because they have a conflict that would prevent their deciding this case in a fair and impartial manner? Any council member? Have any council members heard information about this case other than what they may have been presented at the work session? If so, please disclose it at this time so that the opposing sides can address it in their presentations. Any council member? Okay, we'll now open the hearing and we will hear from the city staff. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, council. My name is Danny Coulter. I'm representing the planning department tonight. At this time, the planning staff would request that all agenda materials submitted for the public hearing to be made part of the public record with any necessary corrections as noted. Do we need a motion to that effect? No, all right. Just acceptances. Thank you. Thank you. Request for transportation special use permit case T16-0001, major use permit case M18-0003 and a major site plan case D16-00105 have been received from Durham public schools for the development of an 86,325 square foot two-story elementary educational building on a 17.7 acre portion of a 46.3 acre site located at 816-830-906-920-926 and 928 Scott King Road. The zoning is rural residential and it's located within the Falls of Jordan District B watershed overlay. An educational facility located in the residential zoning district requires the issuance of a minor use permit pursuant to unified development ordinance section 5.1.2 and is subject to the limited use standards of UDO section 5.3.3K. However, UDO section 3.9.1E permits multiple applications for the same project to be consolidated into a single hearing for approval by one approving authority when a transportation use permit is also required. The transportation use permit requested tonight is under a separate quasi-digital action due to the results from a traffic impact analysis that determine the project will generate at least 600 vehicle trips in a single peak hour. Therefore, the proposed use permit is being considered as a major request for the approval of this governing body instead of a minor use permit request as typical from the Board of Adjustment. Additionally, when a site plan is associated with a required major use permit or a transportation use permit, the site plan shall be considered a major site plan which requires the governing body approval. If the council approves the transportation major use permits, then the council should also consider the approval of the associated major site plan case D16-00105. The site plan is not required as a part of this public hearing, but it does require the separate vote for approval. If the council elects to deny the transportation or major use permit, then the associated site plan should not be approved as it would not be in compliance with applicable use UDO standards. Having summarized these ordinance provisions, the first item requiring action tonight is the transportation special use permit case T16-0001. During public school's request approval of a transportation use permit for traffic impacts associated with a 716 student elementary school with 84 staff members and 102 parking spaces proposed on the south side of Sky King Road between Goldflower Drive and Lion Tree Lane. As previously stated, the transportation use permit is required for site plan projects that generate at least 600 vehicle trips in a single peak hour. For UDO section 3.9.9C, there are four criteria that must be satisfied in order to grant the use permit. The criteria identified in the staff report labeled as attachment three and the applicant's responses to the criteria and the associated site plan labeled as attachment 3A. Along with the required transportation improvements outlined in the staff report and in the city transportation and NCDOT memos labeled attachments 3B and 3C respectively. Other document attachments related to the request are also included in the overall hearing package as specified in the transportation use permit report. The second item that will require action is the major special use permit case M180003. The applicant is proposing an elementary educated facility within a residential zoning district which typically requires a minor use permit approval. However, as previously mentioned, the transportation, because the transportation use permit is also required, the applicant is considering the permits in a single hearing. So it's now considered as a major use permit by this governing body. For UDO section 3.9.8, there are four general findings and 13 review factors. This must be addressed in order to grant this type of use permit. The findings and review factors are identified in the staff report labeled as attachment four and the applicant's responses to those findings and review factors in the application labeled as attachment 4A. Other document attachments are labeled to this request are also included in the overall hearing package as specified in the report. Planning staff will make recommendations for each use permit after the testimony is heard. Bill Judd with the city transportation department is available to answer any questions related to the transportation use permit and planning staff is also available for any questions on all items. And if there are no other questions for staff, then we'll turn the floor over to the applicant for their presentation and any questions from council. Thank you very much. Are there any questions to the city staff from the council or the other party at this point? I have a question. How far is this from the American tobacco trail? I honestly don't know that question, the answer to that question. We've not analyzed that. I think Bill might be trying to come to know. Bill Judge Transportation, I don't have the exact distance but I wouldn't want to say it's probably in the neighborhood of 1000 feet the American tobacco trail to the west. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Will the sidewalks go that far? They will not. The sidewalks will only go for the frontage of the school and then there is a Duke Energy parcel between school and the American tobacco trail. Okay, thank you very much. Any other questions for staff? Any questions at this point, let's see. Alrighty, being no other questions for staff, we will now hear from the applicant. Ms. Dagner. Thank you. Debra Stagner here for Durham Public Schools. I have with me this evening Zach Pierce, landscape architect with CLH Design who submitted the site plan for review for the new elementary school on Scott King Road. Also with me is Rhynell Stevenson, transportation engineer with Raimi Kampen Associates, Ken Lawrence, civil engineer with CLH Design, David Smith, NC certified real estate appraiser and Chad Volk who's the project manager and architect with Davis Kane Architects. We're very pleased to be here this evening to present the plan for a new elementary school in Southern Durham and to seek city council's approval. As indicated in the meeting agenda, we're asking council to adopt an order approving the transportation special use permit to adopt an order approving the major special use permit and to approve the major site plan for Durham Public Schools Elementary School C. I understand that the documents that are attached to the council's agenda have already been admitted and part of the record. I have seven additional exhibits if I may approach Mr. Baker. I would like to introduce those are the resumes of Mr. Pierce, Mr. Loring and Mr. Stevenson, all of whom will tender as experts in their respective fields. I would also ask that council accept the resume as evidence and include them in the record. I have Mr. Smith's report which includes his resume and Mr. Smith will also be tendered as an expert. So I ask that his report be admitted as well. In addition, I have the traffic impact analysis addendum and two demonstrative exhibits, all of which we would ask to have admitted as evidence and included in the record. Take any actions? It doesn't appear that there's any opposition to this, but if there is an objection from anyone to the admission of this evidence. Mr. Mayor and members of council, I have taken a brief look at this. This is as the attorneys has stated and would admit these into evidence. All right, I'll call these admitted into evidence then. Thank you. And I understand I did bring them electronically and I understand they've been loaded, but I'm not sure how that you can access them, but they are available electronically as well. So first I would call our first witness if I may, Mr. Zach Pierce. Good evening, this is Zach Pierce. Landscape architect with CLH design, 105 Hartness Drive in Holly Springs. Mr. Pierce, can you please describe your education, credentials and experience? Yes, I had to attend an accredited university and state for landscape architecture, it's a five year degree, and then have been with CLH design for over 11 years. So I've received my licensure through the state in North Carolina and have been licensed for over five years. I'd like to tender Mr. Pierce as an expert in the area of landscape architecture. That objection. Mr. Pierce, can you please give an overview of the proposed school design and plan and explain how this fits in harmony with the area? Yes, do the members of the council have this type plan? Have you, has everybody seen a copy of it? Okay, so we were very excited about presenting this land. I feel it's a great use for this area would fit in with the rural character of the environment and kind of in the surrounding areas. This is a large piece of property and the site we are developing is a small portion of it. So we are protecting some of the natural buffers of this. We are encouraged by, we are trying to fit within the context. Mr. Pierce, can you confirm that the project is in conformance with all special requirements? Yes. Can you confirm that the project will not adversely affect the health and safety of the public? Yes, that is correct. We are also designed the vehicular circulation and the pedestrian circulation with safety in mind with the pedestrians coming in and where they would cross any sort of vehicular traffic. We do have crosswalks and then we are conscious on where the play areas are around the school where they don't interact with any of the vehicular circulation areas. We are going to review the 13 review factors. Can you please confirm that the project adequately addresses the city's review factors starting with the adequate on-site circulation for pedestrians and vehicles? Yes, we had to have the site plan reviewed by a division of NCDOT that reviews school sites and the circulation we abide by the calculator that they determine the on-site stacking based on the enrollment of the school and to ensure that stacking does not occur on to Scott King Road. So we have provided adequate stacking and queuing for the parent queue lengths and have a dedicated clear route for them to take once you enter onto the school site to the front door to drop off their children. Does the site provide sufficient off-street parking and loading areas? Yes, the parking does meet the school system's needs and also meets the requirements of the UDO. Does the site design provide adequate service entrance and areas? It does, the service entrance is shared with buses and the loading dock and the service areas to the rear of the school which does not face Scott King Road. Does the site design meet the city's lighting requirements? Yes, the school system will lease their lights from Duke Energy and Duke Energy has provided a site lighting plan that has conformed to the UDO. Can you describe how the signage for the site is appropriate? As we have a monument sign that will designate a main entrance and then on-site wayfinding signage for parents, isers, and staff. Does the site have utilities available? My name is Kenneth Loring, I'm a civil engineer with CLH Deton. I graduated from UNC Greensboro and I'm also a licensed land surveyor. I've been licensed as an engineer since 1998 and the question regarding utilities. Yes, they're gonna connect to both public water and public sewer. We'd like to tender Mr. Loring as an expert in the area of civil engineering. It's accepted without objection. Does the site design adequately protect on-site stream buffers, wetlands, and tree cover? Yes, the on-site design does avoid the heavy amount of stream buffers and what wetlands are on either side as we are taking advantage of the developer by area that's centered to the site. Does the site design meet the city's screening, buffering, landscape, and open space requirements? Yes, we are providing the required screening along and street, tree, and around the landscaping in the parking and around the school and along with preserving the amount of open space. We exceed that by only developing a small portion of the site. We will have this issue addressed by Mr. Smith, but can you describe whether the project has any adverse impact on the adjacent properties? We feel it does not. It does complement the use of the surrounding residential area should serve the students of this part of Durham. Is the site compatible with nearby properties and impacted neighborhoods? Jumped ahead on that one. Yes, it does. We feel that the school would be able to accommodate the growth of the Durham County residents in this area. Finally, is the site design consistent with the city's comprehensive plan and applicable development tier guidelines on the surrounding district intent statements? Yes, we feel that it does abide by that rural character by having that ability to protect the wooded areas and the stream buffer and the wetlands and fit within the context of the rural character of the south part of Durham. And Mr. Pierce, in your professional opinion, does the site design meet the intent and requirements of the city's UDO? Yes. Any questions for Mr. Pierce? Any questions for Mr. Pierce? We're good, thank you. Mr. Lawring, if I could, just like to ask, can you please confirm the location of utilities and any opinion you have about whether this meets the UDO? The public water lines are in Scott King and the sewer as well. So we're gonna be connecting the sewer up on Scott King as well. And does this meet the site plan requirements for the UDO? Oh, yes, it does. Thank you. Next, Mr. Smith, David Smith. Mr. Smith, can you please describe your education, credentials and experience? My name is David Smith. I live at Three Morse Town Circle here in Durham. I'm a state certified general real estate appraiser. I also hold the MAI designation of the appraisal and I've been appraising properties in Durham County for almost 40 years. I would like to tender Mr. Smith and as an expert in the area of property valuation and appraisal. It's accepted without objection. Mr. Smith, can you briefly explain your analysis of the proposed elementary school and surrounding properties? What I did was I performed a impact analysis of the property directly across the street from this proposed school is a subdivision line park. So what I did was I found another subdivision across from an existing elementary school, Spring Valley. And I researched the selling prices of properties in that subdivision. And then there's another one, both of these subdivisions are in a bright loop in the park that was away from the school and found that there was no adverse impact or being across the street from a elementary school. And Mr. Smith's report has been introduced in evidence. Mr. Smith, can you confirm in your professional opinion that the proposed school will not substantially injure the value of properties in the general facility vicinity? Yes. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Smith? Any questions for Mr. Smith? Thank you, thank you. And finally, we have Mr. Stevenson. Mr. Stevenson, can you please describe your education credentials and experience? I'm sure. Ronald Stevenson with Raimi Kemp and Associates 5808 fairing the place in Raleigh. I am a register professional engineer in the state of North Carolina, graduated from North Carolina State with a degree in civil engineering and been practicing traffic engineering and civil engineering related to transportation since 2001. And one. We'd like to tender Mr. Stevenson as an expert in the area of civil engineering, transportation, planning and traffic engineering. Accepted without objection. Mr. Stevenson, would you please give an overview of the analysis and planning for traffic impact that has been done for this site? Sure. As was mentioned earlier, there was a traffic impact analysis performed for the school to determine the traffic impacts that study is done in coordination with the city staff and NCDOT. There was an addendum completed that I think is part of the record. That is the most up-to-date traffic study that was done in May of 2016. And then we did a traffic management plan in March of 2017 that addresses the on-site circulation for the school. Mr. Stevenson, can you confirm that the traffic generated by this project will not have a significant adverse impact on the surrounding area? Yes. Will the project result in substantial increase in traffic on local residential streets? I know that the school will add some traffic to the surrounding roads, and obviously particularly Scott King Road, but overall over an entire day, the school traffic is relatively minimal. Most of the traffic happens at a school within 30 minutes, maybe 45 minutes in the morning, and then 30, 45 minutes in the afternoon during pick-up time. Will the project require widening of local residential streets? There will be road improvements done as part of the project. There'll be essentially turn lanes that'll be done as Scott King Road at the site entrances and exit. Can you please confirm that the project adequately provides for safe and efficient vehicular circulation, parking, and loading, and pedestrian access? I'm sure, one of the things the school does, this design does, it has a separate entrance for the parents to come in, and that is an entrance only, and so the parents come in and circulate through one driveway, stack on site, and then there's a separate access for the buses and visitors to use. And the stacking on the site is over 2,000 feet, and that exceeds the requirements for stacking that is created or required based on the NCDOT's MSTA stacking data that they have for schools. As I mentioned, the stacking on site does circulate through the parking area for staff, but the staff does have another way out so that they can get out and not, there's another way into that staff parking lot so that the parent stacking through there does not prevent the staff from being able to access the parking lot, enter, exit. And the pedestrians, as you've also heard earlier, there's sidewalk provided along the frontage of Scott King Road, and then there are pedestrian paths through the site for pedestrians to navigate. And parking spaces? And then there are the parking spaces that are provided does meet the city's code. And can you review briefly the comments by the, about the TMP traffic management plan? Yeah, sure. So the TMP is provided to really document the traffic patterns that the school will use to operate for parents and for the buses and for staff. And that document is done to illustrate that, the traffic pattern, so that was done to show and document the patterns that I've described earlier where the parents are coming in, one access, a one driveway that shows the stacking area where they have to stack and how they drop off the drop off zones in front of the school and then how they exit and also illustrates where the buses will come in and access the site and also visitors and staff. Can you please confirm that the traffic generated by this project will not have a significant adverse impact on the environment? Yes, the, as I mentioned earlier, there'll be turn lanes provided out on Scott King Road at the driveways to prevent or minimize any sort of idling of vehicles along Scott King Road. The other thing to point out about this is that these kids, the school's gonna serve kids in the surrounding community. And those kids are currently going to a school, other schools, and so this may actually shorten the trip, car trips for some of these students and parents. Can you confirm the adequate mitigation measures have been proposed as part of the development? Yes, as I mentioned, the turn lanes earlier will be provided. There also would like to point out that there are some other transportation improvements in the area that the 751 South Project is required to do. We did identify those in the traffic study. So there are some other improvements planned in addition to the turn lanes that would be done at the site driveways on Scott King Road. And in closing, in your professional opinion, does this site design satisfy the city's UDO traffic standards and requirements? I guess it does. Any questions for Mr. Stephens? Thank you, Ms. Sagner. Thank you. So in conclusion, we would like to ask the court, I'm sorry, ask the council to approve the Transportation Special Use Permit and Major Special Use Permit. The applicant has presented substantial competent and material evidence, which has been accepted into the record, both in documentary form and in form of expert testimony to support the approvals of these two special use permits. We have presented evidence on all of the factors and the criteria that are required to be found by the council, and there's been no opposition. So we would ask that, again, that substantial competent material evidence has been permitted and accepted into the record during public schools is entitled to approval of the Transportation Special Use Permit and Major Special Use Permit. Thank you. Thank you. Opponents, should I ask for them? No. Okay. Are there any opponents to this application that would like to speak? Any opponents? I see no one signed up. Okay. Alrighty. I'm now going to ask if the city staff has a recommendation concerning the use permit. Mr. Mayer and legal counsel, should these recommendations be stated separately for each motion, or should they be done just together? They should be done separately. Okay. Then staff would recommend approval of the Transportation Special Use Permit T160001, provided that the improvement shall be substantially consistent with the plans and information submitted to the council as part of the application. Thank you. Are we ready for a motion, Patrick, if there's no discussion? Any discussion? Alrighty. As opposed to our usual deliberations, the applicants simply have to show that they have met these criteria. And so any other comments, Patrick? Okay, great. Alrighty. Now I will accept a motion, I'll accept motion one to adopt an order approving a Transportation Special Use Permit for Durham Public Schools Elementary School C. So moved. Second. And moved and seconded. Madam clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote. Thank you. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you. And staff does recommend approval of the major special use permit M180003, provided that the improvement shall be substantially consistent with the plans and information submitted to the council as part of the application. Thank you. Is there a motion? Second. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt the separate order approving a major special use permit for Durham Public Schools Elementary School C. Madam clerk, please open the vote. Close the vote. Motion passes 7-0. Thanks. And then finally, we're being asked to approve a major site plan for Durham Public Schools Elementary School C. So moved, Mr. Mayor. It's been moved and seconded that we move, approve the major site plan. Mr. Mayor, do you need a recommendation first? I don't think we need a recommendation on that one because I think it's not a special use permit. Is that right? Okay, yeah. Thank you. That's member Austin. Yeah. So we now have a motion, a second on motion three. And I'll ask, thank you. So the clerk has the vote open. Please vote and then we'll close it. Madam clerk, please close the vote. Thank you. Again, the motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. I believe we've done it. Thank you all for being here this hour. Hold on, Mr. Mayor. You're very lucky because I'm city attorney. Again, I was just thanking the city attorney. Thank you, city attorney. Well, I really lucky we're really mean earlier in the night. Okay, item 40, Christian Avenue Street closing. This is conducted public hearing to receive comments and consider the motion to close Christian Avenue. How are you? We'll now hear from staff. I'm well, good evening. I mean, good morning, city council. Morning. And attendees that are still here. I'm Grace Smith with the planning department and I'm here to represent this case on the half of the department. Shane Strickland on behalf of the CE Group Incorporated requests to permanently close a 331 linear foot portion of Christian Avenue. If closed, the right of way will be combined with the adjacent properties as shown on the plat in your packet. This closure was also committed to on our zoning case, D1700030, also known as Hillsborough Coal Mill. The request meets the applicable ordinance requirements and all comments raised by the review agencies have been addressed. Staff would recommend permanent closure of this 331 foot portion of Christian Avenue and we're available if you should have questions. Thank you, Ms. Smith. You've heard the report from staff. I'm now going to declare this public hearing open. I see that we have, well, first of all, are there any questions for staff or members of the council? If not, I see that we have one speaker who's signed up. Shane Strickland, Mr. Strickland, welcome. You have three minutes. Thank you very much. My name is Shane Strickland, 301 Glenwood Avenue, suite 220 Raleigh, North Carolina, 27603, I am the applicant. We propose to close the end of Christian Avenue as the majority of it is not being used as well as it possibly could be now. All I'd really add is staff has been very gracious throughout this process. It's been ongoing for our firm. We really appreciate all the help we've gotten from the city. Thank you, Mr. Strickland. Are there any questions for the applicant? Anyone else would like to be heard on this matter? If not, I'm going to declare this public hearing closed and it matters back before the council. We'll need a motion to adopt an order permanently closing this portion of Christian Avenue. Moved and seconded, we adopt the order. Any discussion? Madam Clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote. Motion passes 6-1 with council member Freeman voting no. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Strickland. We'll now move to item 41 of public hearing and adoption of resolution to approve the issues of multifamily housing revenue bonds by the public financing authority for the financing of the Linhaven apartments or housing project. We'll now hear, this is also a public hearing matter and we'll first, we'll hear from staff. Who from staff is going to represent it? Mr. Young, do we have staff representing for item 41? I know it's late, but we still need you. I think it's their band names. I think that's the planning department. Oh, it's not the planning department, you're right. Linhaven. Keith, can you address that please? Mr. Mayor, members of council, Keith Chad, well deputy city manager, the item that's coming before you is a matter of a conduit debt in the matter of financing a project of the housing authority under the rules and regulations of the IRS. Bond council is present to explain the details of the transactions for you this evening. Thank you. Mr. Pristell, you're good right there. Thank you, nice to see you. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Eric Pristell, this is not a Durham housing authority deal. It is actually a public finance authority deal out of Wisconsin. It is an affordable housing conduit transaction. The city will not be liable for any of the debt. The name of the development is Linhaven Apartments in Southern Durham off of 70 in Lynn Road. The project will continue to be affordable, I think until 2027, thank you, it's a little late. So the materials are before you. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer. I think we should add that we've approved this once before. This is actually an extension of time. Is that not right? That's correct. You approved this transaction on last year according to the code, the tougher hearing expired. Therefore, we're asking for a re-approval. Thank you. You've heard the report from staff and thank you, Mr. Pristell. And I'm gonna declare this public hearing open. And first I'm going to ask, is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak on this item? Seeing none, I'm gonna declare this public hearing closed and the matter's back before the council. We need a motion to adopt a resolution approving the issuance of multifamily housing revenue bonds by the public finance authority. I have a question. I'm sorry, Council Member Freeman. My apologies, go ahead. You mentioned there was a delay. Yes, the delay was for two reasons. Number one, we switched rating agencies. And the second one was because of hud approval. They needed to approve the transaction. Thank you, any more questions? If not, we have a motion that we have the motion to adopt the resolution approving the issuance of multifamily housing revenue bonds. Madam Clerk, I believe we have a motion, do we? I moved. Thank you, is there a second? Second, okay. Thank you. Madam Clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote. The resolution passes 7-0. Great, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pristel. Thank you for being here. This is the kind of project we need more of in Durham, so it's good to have it. Okay, now we'll move on to item 42, Economic Development Incentive Agreement with Mr. Kipchoge, sorry about the name. I hope we have it close. Ryan, and Mr. Dickey, nice to see you. Nice to see you. Mayor Shul, members of council, my name is Chris Dickey with the Office of Economic and Workforce Development for use an item to consider approval over proposed agreement between the city of Durham and Kipchoge Ryan, Kipchoge Ryan has applied for a neighborhood revitalization grant with the Office of Economic Development in the amount of $130,000. Kip Ryan proposed to renovate an underutilized and blighted building at 1212 Fayetteville Street, which is located on a targeted commercial corridor at Haytide Derm. The plan is to redevelop a 3,700 square foot old dry cleaning building into an office-based building. The project won't complete, it will stimulate new business development, provide job opportunity for local residents, promote increased likelihood of walkability in this neighborhood. After staff reviewing analysis, we will recommend a grant center of an amount of $115,000. This project would be an asset in promoting the continued revitalization and vitality of the Fayetteville Street commercial corridor. The company will expend a minimum of $300,000 in hard costs and provide with the city with evidence of these capital expenditures. They will also adhere to a Durham-based business plan for construction-related trades as a contract deliverable. Thank you very much, Mr. Dickey. This is also a public hearing item. You have heard the report from staff, and I'm gonna declare this public hearing open, and I see that we have two people signed up to speak. First is Mr. Kip Ryan, and the second is Peter Skillern. Mr. Ryan, welcome, and you have three minutes. Thank you, sir. Honorable Mayor, Distinguished Council, and others, good morning. My name is Kip Cho-Gay. You pronounce it right. Kip Cho-Gay, Ryan. Thank you. I live at 2111 Duncan Street. I've got a long ties here in Durham. My grandmother was a, she worked at Central, and she's a graduate of Central. My mother got an advanced degree at Central, and I, too, am a North Carolina Central graduate and a Durham resident, so. Good family legacy there. Very proud, very proud. And I'm also excited about being a part of the revitalization of that Fable Street Corridor. This is the former Weaver Cleaners building and purchased the building in 2009, and I'll be brief, I've been working with Mr. Dickey and also with Mr. Skillern, and I am excited about trying to revitalize that building. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'll have some questions in a moment, but Mr. Skillern, you also have three minutes. Thank you, I'm Peter Skillern. I live at 2615 Indian Trail. I'm the Executive Director of Reinvestment Partners. I'm here in support of Mr. Ryan's application. We've worked with Mr. Ryan on this project and developing the pro forma and the site plan to be submitted. We came to this partnership because our organization owns 1208 Fayetteville Street, the neighboring building, and we've received an Economic Development and Grant from the city on approval. The permitting process took longer, much longer than we thought in part because we were trying to fit 2018 zoning requirements into 1918 building. And so that was only possible. The solution in being able to get the parking for our building was working partnership with KIPP. And I just really want to thank Mr. Ryan for saying yes. He's been working collaboratively and looking forward to what this is gonna mean for the community and the revitalization of both of these buildings. As you go down the Fayetteville Street, there's Stanford Warren Library on the right, there's the tattoo parlor on the left, there's the tattoo parlor on the right, 1208, the parking lot, and the weaver dry cleaners. And that's just kind of a critical piece right next to Stanford. So it's a great investment to kind of help revitalize the neighborhood. And I'm here in support of KIPP and to say thank you to him. Thank you, Mr. Skillern. All right, council members. First of all, is there anyone else who would like to speak on this public hearing item? This is a public hearing item. Is there anyone else in the audience here tonight who would like to speak on this public hearing item? If not, I'm gonna declare this public hearing closed and I'm gonna ask if there are questions or comments by members of the council. And I'll start off with one. And I'm not sure if this is best for you, Mr. Dickey, or for Mr. Ryan, their environmental, this site is being remediated as a dry cleaning site. And I wondered if there were any concerns about unforeseen environmental cost and risk here. Mr. Ryan, you have to have a question. Thank you. I am a part of the Dry Cleaner Solvent Cleanup Act program. I made sure I continued the legacy on purchase of the building. There has been significant amount of remediation, more than $700,000 worth, and I continue to be a part of the program. I got a clean bill of health from the EPA prior to purchasing the building. Okay, good. So, and the remediation that occurred, but I assume there's some sort of continuing remediation then. And how long does that continue? Do you have an idea? There is continued assessment. And I am working with Billy Meyer out of Raleigh. He works with the state. And so the remediation is ongoing, but I don't have an answer for how long it'll continue. It's continually monitored. It's continued to be monitored? Yes, sir. Okay. And the program that you talked about, the Solvent Program, does that provide monitoring assistance or financial support for remediation? How does that work? It actually provides up to, just to give it some context, dry cleaners were located around North Carolina who were, because of the laws as far as disposal of the solvents. So North Carolina put in place this program that helped many of these dry cleaners for up to a million dollars to provide up to a million dollars worth of remediation if necessary. So I have not, the building has not necessarily reached a cap yet. I see. And so, but it has performed is for remediation. And then there's ongoing monitoring. Got it. I continue to work. So there could be up to 300,000 more available from this state program for remediation. Okay. Yes, sir. I guess, what I'm asking, the reason I'm asking is with this city investment, I just wanna make sure that you all are aware of and doing everything you need to be doing for the remediation. But it sounds like you're involved in the program. And I guess, Chris, I would just ask you, does it, do you have a high comfort level with that? Yes, we have a comfort level with that. Okay. And then you mentioned sunrise as a possible tenant for the building. Yes, sir. We're speaking to a sunrise recovery center as well as a project access has expressed interest in being tenants. Okay. And we're talking to non-profit organizations. All right. For some reason, Mr. Schill and I was thinking that sunrise was a potential tenant for your building in that quarter. Am I wrong? You have an excellent memory, Mayor Schill. Come on up to them. You have an excellent memory, Mayor Schill. Sunrise did express intent to rent our building. Ours is about 1,800 square feet over a two-story and they've decided that being in an open space as the Kipps building can offer is a better format for them. Got it. And then we're going to work and recruit with Kipp project access is interest as well. So they would put their staff potentially in our building and then put their medical equipment facility in the middle next to where sunrise would go and the dry cleaner building. Right. Thank you. All right. Those are my questions. Any other questions? Council member Freeman. I just wanted to ask, noting those three or two entities, is it? Are there signed agreements already in place? We have letters of interest from sunrise and we do not have a letter of interest yet from project access, but we're in the development process with them. Thank you. That would be all. Thank you. Any more questions? Council member Middleton. I'll yield to the mayor, Pro Tem. I think she went up. She's a good mess. Your hand went up first. I'll yield. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was just wondering if you could describe for us some of the community benefits of your project. Why do you think that this project will benefit the community such that we should invest public money? Well, like Mr. Schiller explained, its location, its vicinity, particularly how far it is from Dawkins Street and some of the homeless issues that are going on there, that area definitely needs some development. And with the Weaver Cleaners building being centrally located to the Dawkins Street as well as what was formerly the Fable Street Projects, we think that investing in this particular project is going to be a springboard for some development that'll move right down Fable Street toward North County Central. Thank you. Do you have plans or thoughts around your hiring for the construction for around issues like wages, whether you'll be hiring people who live here in Durham, whether the jobs will be available to people who might be formerly incarcerated or have a criminal record? You bring up a very good point. Right now we are in our embryonic stages, so I do not have concrete plans, but it is my intent to use, as far as construction, a local firm. In particular, I have a particular interest in construction project management. So my oversight would be involved, but as far as jobs, that is our intent at this time. Are you open to hiring people who might have a criminal record or formerly incarcerated people? Yes. Thank you. And the Durham-Biss Business Plan, you have a Durham-Biss Business Plan associated with this, Chris? That's special. All right. And the way that would work is we would monitor that and we would come up with an agreement right now where estimating the minimal expenditures of capital expenditures being about $300,000, so approximately between $150,000 of looking to a goal of $150,000 for Durham-Biss Business Activity. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councilmember Middleton, did you? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. And congratulations. And I'm pleased and excited that you're waiting into this area. I don't have many conversations about the state of our city without somehow the revitalization of the Fayetteville Street corridor coming up, so I wanna thank you. I hope that will approve this incentive and I hope this is only the beginning of us putting some serious money into that corridor. I did wanna ask, are you leveraging groups like the chamber, the black chamber to help maybe put some your tenant finding efforts on steroid? Are you plugging into? I have attended several meetings and so yes, I'm excited about that link. All right, well, thank you. Best wishes. Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor. Yes. Just a quick question. I don't know if you recognize that there's additional cost in making sure that you do hire folks who do have formerly incarcerated records and I wanna make sure that if there is cost that that is also factored in to the incentive. So I'm wondering if that, the 115, is there a reason why it was cut from 130? Well, the reason why in sitting down and it's been a very extensive process in working with Mr. Ryan and one of the things I've identified in working with businesses throughout the years is in what happens is that we get to a point in understanding construction management, which is why Peter Schiller and Mr. Ryan is working so well. So Peter's coming along to help provide technical assistance with that. And what was requested in the budget, I felt like $115,000 was adequate to move the project forward, where there would be a split between the city as well as Mr. Ryan in carrying that cost so the city would not be carrying the whole burden of the technical assistance that would be applied to this project. And with that added addition of cost around having formerly incarcerated folks on the construction site, is that also factored into your number? Well, I didn't take that into consideration. Council has the, he did apply for $130,000. That's obviously of the council. I'm just giving you what the Office of Economic Development felt like was the adequate amount to support this project. I could just make a proposal. And I think around from what I understood in the conversations I've had with contractors, it's around a $5,000 additional cost. Would you be amenable to include in that for? Again, I would stand by my recommendation as the Office of Economic Development, but council does have the authority to do whatever it wants to do. I just want to make sure that the project is successful. I believe based upon the recommendation that we've put forward that the project would be successful, successfully supported at $115,000 at this particular time and moment based upon the information that was submitted to our office. All right, thank you very much. We have held the public hearing. Public hearing is closed and now we need a motion to authorize the city manager to execute an economic development incentive agreement. So moved. Moved and seconded. We authorized the city manager to execute the agreement with Mr. Ryan. Madam clerk, can you please open the vote? Please close the vote. And the motion passes 7-0. Thank you so much. Mr. Ryan, thank you. Good luck to you. We're excited about this project. And thank you, Chris. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Peter, we really do. Good luck. I'm excited about it. Yeah, let us know. We can come out and cut a ribbon. Okay. All right, we're now going to move to items. We have two more items. Items, if I'm correct, we have item seven and item 12. Is that correct? That's correct. Thank you. Item seven, which is the cooperative agreement with Go Triangle for Durham, our light rail transit DLRT review. We have, this was pulled by the city attorney for discussion of some language. And I'll turn it over to him. I know that council member Freeman also has some questions. And I believe some of the rest of us may as well. So Mr. Attorney. Mr. Mayor and members of council, I did present to you a memo at the beginning yesterday of this item, some changes that we made to this in consultation with folks from Go Triangle to more accurately describe where we stand in relation to the final design of the light rail corridor. So we have basically replaced article three paragraph F, which appears on page 11 of your, of what's on your iPads with the language that I've included in the memo. Again, the more accurately stated status of that arrangement. If you're in agreement with those edits, then we would propose a revised motion language, which would read as follows, to ratify by resolution that the cooperative agreement will go triangle with the revised article three paragraph F language proposed in the city attorney's memorandum dated December 3rd, 2018 and presented to council at a regular meeting on December 3rd, 2018 and to authorize manager to execute the cooperative agreement with this revision on behalf of the city. You can do that all in one motion. Thank you very much, Mr. Attorney. Before we discuss other matters, I'm gonna ask if we first discuss the city attorneys matter, are any questions for the city attorney? Were any other items discussed from work session? Not on. Regarding anything that I asked about. I'm not familiar with. We're gonna first take up this particular aspect of it and then we'll take up your question. Council member Freeman, we're all, I know Trials expecting that discussion, but let's just first focus on this one aspect of it. I guess it's, we need to, the reason for this language is to give some more flexibility of, or to better express the situation on Blackwell Street. Correct. And so I wanna thank you, Mr. Attorney and Don O'Toole, thank you and go Triangle staff. I think we have a little bit better language. Council member Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Prior to this, did the existing language require approval by the Go Triangle Board of Trustees? Or would that have been in the ordinary course of what would have happened anyway? We're just clarifying that. Mr. Tomic. Is everyone else saying good morning? The approval policy that the Go Triangle Board of Trustees adopted governing changes to the project only reserved their expectation of approving for certain items. And this would not have typically risen to that level. The staff always has the option to bring things, but this makes it clear that this would come to the Go Triangle Board of Trustees for a decision. That's very, very helpful, thank you. Thank you. All right, if there are no questions on that, we have some questions from Council Member Freeman about some other items, and then we will take all this up with a single motion as recommended by the city attorney. Is that what you would recommend? Okay, great. Council Member Freeman, your questions on this item. I think at work session, I mentioned how this community engagement priority needed to be included to show that we were intentionally focused on race equity and especially around environmental justice. As noted with the previous romp case, had the type of community engagement been incorporated at the beginning, we wouldn't have faced this type of opposition. And I feel strongly about it being included in the cooperative agreement. So can we hear from Go Triangle staff? We certainly are open to that kind of community engagement and intend to do more of that community engagement. I think through the long conversations with the city staff and vetting the language in here, our preference would be to handle that as one of the future agreements that are referenced in here or future coordination activities, but that the Council take the draft up as it's written tonight. We're also, this references a number of committees that we would have together with the city at a staff level. And we are open to covering the communications under any one of those committees or as an ongoing topic with the Executive Management Committee that we hold every two weeks. Where exactly are you referring to it references? So on, this is article five, the Executive Leadership Coordinating Committee is identified there in A and that is city manager level with Jeff Bann, our CEO or me, his designee and other related staff both on both sides. The others would be related to E or F, the Workforce Development, the Transnuring Development or G, not G, not Construction Inspections. Or we could create another committee and I think that this contemplates that other committees could be contemplated under the terms of this agreement. But there isn't anything that says other, it's all labeled, it's all identified specifically, so Construction, Transit, Workforce, Transit Operations, Fire and Life Safety, Design and Executive Leadership. You notice how they're all laid out so that those coordinating committees will occur and even the extra additional section where we're having a conversation about creating a reconfiguration of roadways and downtown corridor that's spelled out as an additional committee that'll likely be formed to address the Blackwell discrepancy or design. Thank you, and so the other places where this has been contemplated in conversation, Article Four, Section A, Future Coordination, and at the bottom of that, it spells out that public engagement and communication would be those types of committees that have not yet been formed but would be formed so that we're working together with city staff on the strategies to achieve the aims that I think are described here. If I could ask a really direct question. In the past, how have you worked with minority and women in business to achieve your goals? Because I think that specifically is where I'm concerned that this is not spelled out enough for me to feel comfortable with this type of agreement. With any contract that we undertake that uses federal funds, we have established Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Goal that gets set with that contract that is tied to an assessment of the availability of the firms that can do that work and are certified as Disadvantaged Business Enterprises. That's, I know that the city uses some different terminology in their contracting. The DBE terminology is associated with federal transportation contracting. And over the past five years, we've had roughly 10% DBE participation in our procurement opportunities. On the contracts that we have now for this light rail, the both the engineering consultant and the construction management consultants, we have a goal of 14% on the engineering consultant and 15% on the construction management consultant. And that has been actualized in as for the light rail project to date over $17 million of contracts awarded to DBE firms. And of those, roughly five million has been awarded to African-American-owned businesses. So in making those decisions around the goals, who is responsible? Like who exactly directs that goal? So the... What I'm hearing is you're saying it's specific to each project or separate. It's not something you have standardly set. So what we have set, we have an annual DBE goal that our board of trustees sets. It's recommended to the board of trustees they have to adopt it. That's part of the federal requirements for transit agencies. And then on, and that's based upon a forecast of what projects do we have coming up? Do we expect that coming up in the year and what types of services we need? And then for a specific contract or procurement, then we look at the specifics of that set of goal and that gets committed through the contract with the consultant or with the contractor. So can I make a suggestion, Mr. Talmage? Under future coordination, such future committees may cover the following topics, safety and security, workforce development, trans-oriented development, affordable housing, operations and management. Would it be, what about adding minority and women participation? Or contracting? Business and participation. I'm not sure the exact wording, but I think that might go a long way to assuage council member Freeman and I know that we all share her concern. As do we, I'm gonna just look at my attorney, my legal assistance here. Yep. So in concept, we don't have any concerns about that. What we'd like to do because Disadvantaged Business Enterprise is the measurement that we have to use and the terminology we have to use that would use consistent language with the required. So in other words, it would say, such future committees may cover the following topics, safety and security, workforce development, the affordable housing, operations and management, public engagement, communication and disadvantaged business enterprises. Additionally, just to make note, recognizing that this is a new area that we're in, but just in the same sense as Mayor Pro Tem Jill and Jocelyn mentioned in the previous case where public funds are being spent, it's important to make sure that we're focused on hiring minorities and then also returning citizens on returning incarcerated individuals. The fact that at 115,000 we're asking the question and at $2.5 billion it's not is a problem and just recognizing like this is something that we've got to really kick into high gear if we're gonna have impact as a whole as a council and as a go triangle as a partner in this conversation in Durham. So let me just respond to that, we talk about this all time as a go triangle board. This is not something that is, this is a very, very constant topic of discussion for this project and all our others. So your point is very well taken, it's super important, but it is something that we do. This is, the go triangle board is the board as opposed to city council has oversight of this project and we spend a lot of energy and time on it, so. I think it's important to note, like Mayor Schuyl is a member of that board and he is the go to for the information, but this conversation, I mean, it's been kind of like pulling teeth to get additional information and I'm kind of like fed up with it, that's all. What is the information that you need? Is it employment statistics or contracting statistics? Yes, I did ask for employment statistics and contracting statistics as well as the board, I mean the makeup of the board, how many people of color are on that board, how many are not, like all of that is all information that. Well, that should be very easily accessible and I'm sure that you all can provide that. We can provide that and I have some information about our staff, the racial composition of our staff. Now if you'd like me to share that, otherwise we can send that in writing tomorrow. That would be great if you could. So we did pull our Human Resources Department, pulled the information and the categories are by gender, male female and by race, black, white, Hispanic and multiracial and highest categories, 35% black male, 31% black female, 16% white male, 11% white female, 4% Hispanic male, 2% Hispanic female and 1% multiracial female. Thank you, Mr. Talmage. Any more questions? Thank you. Welcome. And I think we should say those are very substantial figures in terms of minority and women employment and I wanna just commend the agency for giving that attention to that. Okay, I'm going to ask that we accept that we make a motion to approve the cooperative agreement. Let me just get to my language here. I'm gonna ask the city attorney if he will provide his language for this and it'll be with the addition of the phrase, utilization of disadvantaged business enterprises in the... Future coordination. In the, for future coordination, yeah. And on top of that, to ratify by resolution, the cooperative agreement will go triangle with the revised article three paragraph F language proposed in my memo that I provided to you tonight and will authorize the city manager to execute the cooperative agreement with this revision on behalf of the city. Thank you. Can I have a motion to that effect? So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Madam clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. Thank you. Alrighty, we're now moving to the last item in what is by far the longest city council meeting I've ever been at. Item 12, contract for all street parking access and review control system parks for the city's parking facilities. And I think we have some language changes there. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, may I have a council on item 12 due to some concerns regarding privacy and the use of some of this information that the contractor could pick up. We are proposing to add certain language to section 12 E of the agreement. And the specific language that we're adding after addresses comma and driver's license is the phrase is vehicle license numbers, vehicle identification, or registration information. So that is information that the contractor would be prohibited from using. Just adding those three categories, vehicle license numbers, vehicle identification or registration information. Thank you very much. Alrighty, are there any comments about the item, including the language that has been suggested by the city attorney? Yes, just noting like I'm really thankful for that. It's important to note that in light of what we've just seen, things can be, things are gonna continue to shift. It's important to make sure we're taking care of our residents in the community. Thank you. Any more comments? Alrighty, that language, the addition of that language, I'm gonna ask for a motion to authorize the city manager to execute the contract with Carolina Tom and Equipment Inc. So moved. Second. Madam clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. And the motion passes seven, zero. I believe that is all the business to come before this body, Mr. Manager, is that correct? Yes, sir. Our longest meeting by about 20 minutes, Mr. Mayor. I'm gonna declare this meeting adjourned at 111 AM. It's 2008, the longest meeting. Second August was June 5th, 2000.